Tiger seemed unaffected by the lateness of the hour. The samurai face was perhaps etched in more sinister, more brutal lines. The hint of Tartar, tamed and civilized, lurked with less concealment, like a caged animal, in the dark pools of his eyes. But the occasional rocking motion on the buttocks and sides of the feet was the only sign that he was interested, even excited. He said, 'One month ago, Bondo-san, I sent one of my best men into this place to try and discover what it was all about. I was so instructed by my Minister, the Minister of the Interior. He in turn was under orders from the Prime Minister. The matter was becoming one of public debate. I chose a good man. He was instructed to get into the place, observe, and report. One week later, Bondo-san, he was recovered from the sea on a beach near this Castle of Death. He was blinded and in delirium. All the lower half of his body was terribly burned. He could only babble a haiku about dragonflies. I later discovered that, as a youth, he had indulged in the pastime of our youngsters. He had tied a female dragonfly on a thread and let it go. This acts as a lure for the male dragonfly and you can quickly catch many males in this way. They attach themselves to the female and will not let go. The haiku - that is a verse of seventeen syllables - he kept on reciting until his death, which came soon, was "Desolation! Pink dragonflies flitting above the graves."'
James Bond felt he was living inside a dream: the little room, partitioned in imitation rice-paper and cedar plywood, the open vista of a small, inscrutable garden in which water tinkled, the distant redness of an imminent dawn, the long background of sake and cigarettes, the quiet voice of the storyteller telling a fairy tale, as it might be told in a tent under the stars. And yet this was something that had happened the other day, close by - was happening now, something that Tiger had brought him here to tell. Why? Because he was lonely? Because there was no one else he could trust? Bond pulled himself out of his somnolent slouch. He said, 'I'm sorry, Tiger. What did you do next?'
Tiger Tanaka seemed to sit slightly more upright on his black-edged rectangle of golden tatami. He looked very directly at James Bond and said, 'What was there to do? I did nothing except apologize to my superiors. I waited for an honourable solution to present itself. I waited for you to come.'
'Me!'
'You were sent. It might have been another.'
James Bond yawned. He couldn't help it. He could see no end to the evening. Tiger had got some Japanese bee in his Japanese bonnet. How in hell could Bond stop it buzzing? He said, 'Tiger. It's time for bed. Let's talk about the rest of this tomorrow. Of course I'll give you any advice I can. I can see it's a difficult problem. But those are just the ones to sleep on.' He made to rise from his chair.
Tiger said, and it was an order, 'Sit down, Bondo-san. If you have any regard for your country, you leave tomorrow.' He consulted his watch. 'By the twelve-twenty from Tokyo main station. Your ultimate destination is Fukuoka on the southern island of Kyushu. You will not be going back to your hotel. You will not be seeing Dikko. From now on you are under my personal orders.' The voice went very quiet and velvety. 'Is that understood?'
Bond sat up as if he had been stung. 'What in God's name are you talking about, Tiger?'
Tiger Tanaka said, 'In my office the other day you made a significant statement. You said words to the effect that in exchange for MAGIC 44 you were empowered to carry out any personal services that I might require of you.'
'I didn't say that I was empowered. I meant that I would do anything for you on my personal responsibility.'
'That is quite good enough. I took you at your word and I requested an audience of the Prime Minister. He instructed me to proceed, but to regard the matter as a State secret known only to him and to me—and of course to you.'
'Come on, Tiger,' said Bond impatiently. 'Cut the cackle. What is it you want me to do?'
But Tiger was not to be hurried. He said, 'Bondo-san, I will now be blunt with you, and you will not be offended, because we are friends. Yes? Now it is a sad fact that I, and many of us in positions of authority in Japan, have formed an unsatisfactory opinion about the British people since the war. You have not only lost a great Empire, you have seemed almost anxious to throw it away with both hands. All right,' he held up a hand, 'we will not go deeply into the reasons for this policy, but when you apparently sought to arrest this slide into impotence at Suez, you succeeded only in stage-managing one of the most pitiful bungles in the history of the world, if not the worst. Further, your governments have shown themselves successively incapable of ruling and have handed over effective control of the country to the trade unions, who appear to be dedicated to the principle of doing less and less work for more money. This feather-bedding, this shirking of an honest day's work, is sapping at ever-increasing speed the moral fibre of the British, a quality the world once so much admired. In its place we now see a vacuous, aimless horde of seekers-after-pleasure - gambling at the pools and bingo, whining at the weather and the declining fortunes of the country, and wallowing nostalgically in gossip about the doings of the Royal Family and of your so-called aristocracy in the pages of the most debased newspapers in the world.'
James Bond roared with laughter. 'You've got a bloody cheek, Tiger! You ought to write that out and sign it "Octogenarian" and send it in to The Times. You just come over and take a look at the place. It's not doing all that badly.'
'Bondo-san, you have pleaded guilty out of your own mouth. "Not doing too badly," indeed! That is the crybaby excuse of a boy who gets a thoroughly bad end-of-term report. In fact you are doing very badly indeed in the opinion of your few remaining friends. And now you come to me and ask for some very important intelligence material to bolster up the pitiful ruins of a once great Power. Why should we give it to you? What good will it do us? What good will it do you, Bondo-san? It is like giving smelling salts to a punch-drunk heavy-weight just before the inevitable knockout.'
Bond said angrily, 'Balls to you, Tiger! And balls again! Just because you're a pack of militant potential murderers here, longing to get rid of your American masters and play at being samurai again, snarling behind your subservient smiles, you only judge people by your own jungle standards. Let me tell you this, my fine friend. England may have been bled pretty thin by a couple of World Wars, our Welfare State politics may have made us expect too much for free, and the liberation of our Colonies may have gone too fast, but we still climb Everest and beat plenty of the world at plenty of sports and win Nobel Prizes. Our politicians may be a feather pated bunch, and I expect yours are too. All politicians are. But there's nothing wrong with the British people - although there are only fifty million of them.'
Tiger Tanaka smiled happily. 'Well spoken, Bondo-san. I thought your famous English stoicism might break down if I hit hard enough. I just wanted to see. And, for your information, those are very similar to the words I addressed to my Prime Minister. And do you know what he said? He said, all right, Mr Tanaka. Put this Commander Bond to the test. If he succeeds, I will agree that there is still an elite in Britain and that this valuable material would be safe in their hands. If he fails, you will politely turn down the request.'
Bond shrugged impatiently. He was still smarting under Tiger's onslaught, and the half-truths which he knew lay behind his words. 'All right, Tiger. What is this ridiculous test? Some typical bit of samurai nonsense, I suppose.'
'More or less,' agreed Tiger Tanaka, with equanimity. 'You are to enter this Castle of Death and slay the Dragon within.'
9
INSTANT JAPAN
THE black Topoyet hurtled through the deserted streets which were shiny with the dew of what would be a beautiful day.