The body, still dripping blood, swung slightly in the breeze, the neck stretching almost visibly as it moved. What was left of the face was contorted in horrible agony.
Bond swallowed and stepped towards the window. At that moment there came a grotesque background sound, mingling with the creaking of rope on hook. From across the street, a group of rehearsing musicians began to play. Mozart, naturally; Bond thought it was the sombre opening of the Piano Concerto No. 20, but his knowledge of Mozart was limited. Then farther down the street a jazz trumpeter, a busker probably, started up. It was an odd counterpoint, the Concerto mingling with the 1930s’ Big House Blues. Bond wondered if it were mere coincidence.
8
UNDER DISCIPLINE
Bond needed time to think, but standing there on the terrace amidst the carnage was not conducive to concentration. It was now three o’clock in the morning. Apart from the music floating up from below, the city of Salzburg was silent – a glitter of lights, with the outline of mountains showing pitch black against the dark navy sky.
The lights were still on in the main room as he entered. There was no sign of a struggle. Whoever had blown away Der Haken and his crew must have operated very quickly. There would have been more than one to deal with those five men. And whoever had carried out the executions would have been trusted, at least by Osten. Bloodstains could be seen on the wall between the two archways, and there were more traces on the deep pile cream carpet. On one of the tables his ASP and baton lay in full view. Bond checked the weapon, which was still loaded and unfired, before returning it to the holster. He paused, weighing the baton for a moment before slipping it into the cylindrical holder still attached to his belt.
Then he went over and closed the windows, Der Haken’s body bumping heavily against the glass, and found the button which operated the curtains, blotting out the gruesome sight on the terrace.
He had moved from the balcony quickly, knowing that whoever had finished off the policemen could still be in the apartment. Drawing the ASP, Bond began a systematic search of the flat. The door out to the lift appeared to have been secured from the outside, and three of the rooms were also firmly locked. One was the guest room he had recently vacated, the other two, he deduced, contained Sukie and Nannie. There was no response from either room when he knocked, and no sign of keys.
Two things worried Bond. Why, with his quarry under lock and key in this very apartment, had not his adversary used the opportunity to kill him on the spot? One of the Head Hunt competitors appeared to be playing a devious game and eliminating any other competitor who had come near the prize. Who were the most likely people to be running this kind of interference? The obvious choice was SPECTRE itself. It would be just their style to mount a competition with a fabulous price on the victim’s head, and then step in at the last moment to reap the reward. That would be the most economic way to have your cake and eat it.
But if SPECTRE were responsible for knocking out the opposition, they surely would have disposed of him by now? Who could be left in the game? Perhaps one of the unsympathetic espionage organisations? If so, Bond’s first choice would be the current successors to his old enemy, SMERSH.
Since he had first encountered this devious arm of the KGB, SMERSH (an acronym for Smiert Spionam: Death to Spies) had undergone a whole series of changes. For many years it had been known as Department Thirteen, before becoming completely independent as Department V. In fact, Bond’s Service had allowed all but their inner circle to go on referring to Department V long after it too had disappeared.
What had happened was very much the concern of the Secret Intelligence Service, who had been running an agent of their own, Oleg Lyalin, deep within Department V. When Lyalin defected in the early 1970s, it took a little time for the KGB to discover he had been a long-term mole. After that Department V had suffered a purge which virtually put it out of business.
Even Bond had not been informed until relatively recently that his old enemies were now completely reformed under the title Department Eight of Directorate S. Was this new KGB operations unit now the likeliest dark horse in the race for his head?
In the meantime, there were very pressing problems. Check out the rooms which he thought contained Nannie and Sukie; and do something about getting out of the apartment block. The Bentley Mulsanne Turbo cannot be called the most discreet of vehicles. Bond reckoned that, with the alert still on, he could get about half a kilometre before being picked up.
Searching Der Haken’s swinging body was not pleasant, but it did yield the Bentley keys, but not those to the guest bedrooms or to the elevator.
The telephone was still working, but Bond had no way of making a clandestine call. Carefully he dialled the direct number for the Service Resident in Vienna. It rang nine times before a befuddled voice responded.
‘It’s Predator,’ Bond said quickly, using his field cryptonym. ‘I have to speak clearly, even if the Pope himself has a wire on your telephone.’
‘Do you realise it’s three in the morning? Where the hell are you? There’s been an almighty fuss. A senior Austrian police officer . . .’
‘And four of his friends were killed,’ Bond interrupted.
‘They’re out looking for you . . . How did you know about the policeman?’
‘Because he didn’t get killed . . .’
‘What?’
‘The bastard was doubling. Set it up himself.’
‘Where are you?’ The Resident now sounded concerned.
‘Somewhere in the new town, in a very plush apartment block, together with five corpses and, I hope, the two young ladies who were with me. I haven’t a clue about the address, but there’s a telephone number you can work from.’ He read out the number on the handset.
‘Enough to be going on with. I’ll call you back as soon as I get something sorted out, though I suspect you’re going to be asked a lot of questions.’
‘The hell with the questions, just let me get out to the clinic and on with the job. Quickly as you can.’
Bond closed the line. He then went to the first of the two locked rooms and banged hard on the door. This time he thought he could hear muffled grunts coming from inside. The deadlock would have to be dealt with by brute force, whatever the noise.
In the kitchen he found a sharp, heavy meat cleaver, with which he demolished a section of door round the lock. Sukie Tempesta lay on the bed, bound, gagged, and stripped to her plain underwear.
‘They took my clothes!’ she shouted angrily when he got the ropes untied and the gag off.
‘So I see,’ Bond said with a smile as she reached for a blanket.
He went across to the other room, where he succeeded in breaking in more quickly. Nannie was in the same situation, only she looked as though she bought her underwear from Fredericks of Hollywood. It was always the plain-looking ones, Bond thought, as she yelled,
‘They took my suspender belt with the holster on it.’
At that moment the telephone started to ring. Bond lifted the receiver.
‘Predator.’
‘A very senior officer’s on the way with a team,’ the Resident said. ‘For heaven’s sake be discreet, and tell only what is absolutely necessary. Then get to Vienna as fast as you can. That’s an order from on high.’
‘Tell them to bring women’s clothes,’ Bond snapped, giving a rough estimate of the sizes.
By the time he was off the telephone he could hear squeals of delight from one of the bathrooms, where the clothes had been found bundled into a cupboard. Sukie came through fully dressed but, almost blatantly, Nannie appeared doing up her stockings to her retrieved suspender belt, which still had holster and pistol in place.