Taking the straps, he approached Quinn with his gun hand well back, knowing that a lashing foot could catch his wrist.
‘The slightest move and I’ll blow a hole in you so big that even the maggots will need maps. Understand?’
Quinn grunted and Bond kicked his legs together, viciously hitting his ankle with the steel-capped toe of his shoe so that he yelped with pain. While the agony was sweeping through him, Bond swiftly slid one of the straps around Quinn’s ankles, pulled hard and buckled the leather tightly.
‘Now the arms! Fingers laced behind your back!’
As though to make him understand, Bond knocked the right wrist with his foot. There was another cry of pain, but Quinn obeyed, and Bond secured his wrists with another strap.
‘This may be old-fashioned, but it’ll keep you quiet until we’ve made more permanent arrangements,’ Bond muttered as he buckled the two long straps together. He fastened one end of the elongated strap around Quinn’s ankles, then brought the rest up around his neck and back to the ankles. He pulled tightly, bringing the prisoner’s head up and forcing the legs towards his trunk. Indeed it was a method old and well tried. If the captive struggled he would strangle himself, for the straps were pulled so tightly that they made Quinn’s body into a bow, with the feet and neck as the outer edges. Even if he tried to relax his legs, the strap would pull hard on the neck.
Quinn let out a stream of obscene abuse, and Bond, enraged now at discovering an old friend to be a mole, kicked him hard in the ribs. He took out a handkerchief and stuffed it into Quinn’s mouth with a curt, ‘Shut up!’
For the first time Bond had a real chance to look around the room. It was furnished in solid nineteenth-century style – a heavy desk, the bookcases rising to the ceiling, the chairs with curved backs. Kirchtum still sat at the desk, his face pale, hands shaking. The big, expansive man had turned to terrified blubber.
Bond went over to the radio, stepping over the books that had been swept off the shelves. The radio operator was slumped in his chair, the blood dripping on to the carpet bright against the faded pattern. Bond pushed the body unceremoniously from the chair. He did not recognise the face, twisted in the surprised agony of death. The other corpse lay sprawled against the wall, as though he was a drunk collapsed at a party. Bond could not put a name to him, but had seen the photograph in the files – East German, a criminal with terrorist leanings. It was amazing, he thought, how many of Europe’s violent villains were turning into mercenaries for the terrorist organisations. Rent-a-Thug, he thought, as he turned to Kirchtum.
‘How did they manage it?’ he asked blandly, seemingly drained by the knowledge that Quinn had sold out.
‘Manage?’ Kirchtum appeared to be at a loss.
‘Look – ’ Bond almost shouted before realising that Kirchturn’s English was not always perfect, and could have deserted him in his present state. He walked over and laid an arm on the man’s shoulder, speaking quietly and sympathetically. ‘Look, Herr Doktor, I need information from you very quickly, especially if we are ever to see the two ladies alive again.’
‘Oh, my God.’ Kirchtum covered his face with his big, thick hands. ‘It is my fault that Miss May and her friend . . . Never should I have allowed Miss May to go out.’ He was near to tears.
‘No. No, not your fault. How were you to know? Just calm yourself and answer my questions as carefully as you can. How did these men manage to get in and hold you here?’
Kirchtum let his fingers slide down his face. His eyes were full of desolation. ‘Those . . . those two . . .’ He gestured at the bodies. ‘They came as repair men for the Antenne – what you call it? The pole? For the television . . .’
‘The television aerial.’
‘Ja, the television aerial. The duty nurse let them in, and on to the roof. She thought it good, okay. Only when she was coming to me did I smell a mouse.’
‘They asked to see you?’
‘In here. My office, they ask. Only later I find they had been putting up Antenne for their radio equipment. They lock the door. They threaten me with guns and torture. Tell me to put the next doctor in charge of the clinic. To say I would be occupied in my study on business matters for a day or two. They laughed when I had to say “tied up”. They had pistols. Guns. What could I do?’
‘You do not argue with loaded guns,’ Bond agreed, ‘as you can see.’ He nodded to the corpses. Then he turned to the grunting, straining Steve Qumn. ‘And when did this piece of scum arrive?’
‘The same night, later. Through the windows, like you.’
‘Which night was that?’
‘The day after the ladies disappeared. The two in the afternoon, the other at night. By that time they had me in this chair. All the time they had me here, except when I had to perform functions . . .’ Bond looked surprised, and Kirchturn said he meant natural functions. ‘Finally I refused to give you messages on the telephone. Until then they had only threatened me. But after that . . .’
Bond had already seen the bowl of water and the large crocodile clips wired up to a socket in the wall. He nodded, knowing only too well what Kirchtum must have suffered.
‘And the radio?’ he asked.
‘Ah, yes. They used it quite often. Twice, three times a day.’
‘Did you hear anything?’ Bond looked at the radio. There were two sets of earphones jacked into the receiver.
‘Most of it. They wear the earphones sometimes, but there are speakers there, see.’
Indeed, there were two small circular speakers set into the centre of the system. ‘Tell me what you heard.’
‘What to tell? They spoke. Another man spoke from far away . . .’
‘Who spoke first? Did the other man call them?’
Kirchtum thought for a moment. ‘Ah, yes. The voice would come with a lot of crackling.’
Bond, standing beside the sophisticated high frequency transmitter, saw that the dials were glowing and heard a faint hum from the speakers. He noted the dial settings. They had been talking to someone a long way off – anything from six hundred to six thousand kilometres away.
‘Can you remember if the messages came at any specific times?’
Kirchtum’s brow creased, and then he nodded. ‘Ja. Yes, I think so. In the mornings. Early. Six o’clock. Then at midday . . .’
‘Six in the evening and again at midnight?’
‘Something like that, yes. But not quite.’
‘Just before the hour, or just after, yes?’
‘That is right.’
‘Anything else?’
The doctor paused, thought again, and then nodded. ‘Ja. I know they have to send a message when news comes that you are leaving Salzburg. They have a man watching . . .’
‘The hotel?’
‘No. I heard the talk. He is watching the road. He is to telephone when you drive away and they have to make a signal with the radio. They must use special words . . .’
‘Can you remember them?’
‘Something like the package is posted to Paris.’
That sounded par for the course, Bond thought. Cloak and dagger. The Russians, like the Nazis before them, read too many bad espionage novels.
‘Were there any other special words?’
‘Yes, they used others. The man at the other end calls himself Hawk’s Wing – I thought it strange.’
‘And here?’
‘Here they call themselves Macabre.’
‘So, when the radio comes on, the other end says something like, “Macabre this is Hawk’s Wing . . .”’
‘Over.’
‘Over, yes. And, “Come in Hawk’s Wing.”’
‘This is just how they say it, yes.’