At the American Airlines desk, the tickets were ready for them. ‘There’s no charge, sir,’ the clerk told Bond. ‘They’ve been paid for.’ They checked in their luggage, only retaining the briefcase and the Scribner’s canvas bag – a relic of the old days when the now defunct business was one of the best book stores in New York.
They passed through the security and Bond made his excuses, going to the nearest restroom. Inside one of the cubicles, he worked the combination lock on the briefcase, removed the shielded false bottom and retrieved his pistol. In under two minutes he had reassembled the weapon, slipped a magazine into the butt, cocked it, activated the safety and slid it into his waistband, pushing it down firmly behind his right hip. Chi-Chi was waiting patiently for him and together they started the long walk down to the gate.
Back on West 56th Street, two unmarked cars and an ambulance drew up at the apartment building some ten minutes after Bond and Chi-Chi left. They got hold of the superintendent claiming there had been an emergency call saying a woman was unconscious in 4B. The super unlocked the apartment for them, and Myra, still unconscious, was taken down to the ambulance on a stretcher, causing the usual little morbid crowd to gather.
What the crowd did not see was one of the men from the accompanying cars loitering in the apartment until the ambulance rescue squad people had left. He went rapidly back into the bedroom and, using pillows and blankets from one of the closets and a wig he had brought for the purpose, constructed the outline of a body asleep in the bed. He was the last man out.
An hour later, as Chi-Chi and Bond were walking to the AA departure gate, a car drew up across the street from the apartment block. The driver stayed where he was and his passenger, a greying, respectable-looking man wearing a long raincoat over his suit, walked over to the building. He did not spend time calling the superintendent, but inserted a pick-lock into the door, and had it open in thirty seconds.
He carefully closed it behind him, then quietly went up the stairs to 4B, where the door yielded to his expertise in less time than the one downstairs. He wore gloves and opened up quietly, reaching under his raincoat to reveal a wicked-looking Skorpion machine-pistol, fitted with a noise suppression unit.
Slowly he crossed to the master bedroom, opened the door and fired four short bursts of 9mm rounds into the ‘body’ with a sound like a small child idly running an old glove along a row of railings.
He did not wait to look at his work. He had been told to kill quickly and efficiently and get away without being detected. Within minutes he was crossing the road to the anonymous car which drove away with great care.
Neither the driver nor his murderous passenger even noticed the battered Buick that had seen better days pull out and follow them about two cars back in the traffic.
They had almost made it to the gate and Chi-Chi was just wondering aloud if the movie would be any good, when the two men came up on either side of them. The one next to Bond had Oriental looks, and was a very large man, the one who began to keep pace with Chi-Chi was shorter and Caucasian.
‘Just keep walking past the gate, Mr Abelard,’ the big one said.
‘And please don’t make a fuss, this is for your security.’ The smaller man’s accent could have passed for British.
‘My name is Ding,’ the large one continued without breaking his stride. ‘My friends call me Bone Bender Ding. My partner, here, beside the lovely lady is called Fox, but he answers to other, less salubrious names. Mr Lee felt it safer to send his private jet down for you both. That will make certain that nobody’s on your tails, if you’ll excuse the expression, ma’am.’
‘And what if we prefer American Airlines?’ asked Bond.
‘Oh, Mr Lee would be very upset, sir. Also it would become unpleasant and Mr Lee cannot abide unpleasantness. Now, straight down to the end of this walkway. We have a car there ready to take you out to the jet.’
10
FLIGHT OF DECEPTION
Ed Rushia was already in line, at the gate, waiting to board AA 15 when he saw Bond and Chi-Chi pass down the long walkway. An unobservant moron would have noticed them, he thought, for their companions were highly visible – the very large, silk-suited Chinese with the arms of a gorilla and the smaller white man whose eyes constantly moved as though looking for trouble. He acted immediately, heading for the nearest payphone and using an Amex card to dial the number Bond had contacted so successfully during the night. The usual response came from Curve’s Deli, and he immediately asked to be patched through to control.
In fact, the mythical Curve’s Deli was located in a large room some seventeen storeys up in an old apartment building on Lexington Avenue. The floor was bare wood, the walls could have done with several coats of paint and there was an all-pervading smell of damp. But these things were overshadowed by one wall which dominated the place. A series of long tables held a tall bank of sophisticated radio and electronics gear plus a portable automatic switchboard. There were four high-backed office chairs set at intervals along the entire working area and one man sat in the centre of this array while another lay asleep on a camp bed tucked into the opposite corner.
John Grant, the CIA officer who, with two other agents, had assisted on the aircraft carrier, was in charge of monitoring what they had dubbed
It was Grant himself who was on duty and took the patched through call from Rushia.
‘They’re not boarding,’ the Navy Intelligence man reported with unusual brusqueness.
‘Yes, I know.’ Grant was so clear on the secure line that it was difficult to believe that he was over three thousand miles away. ‘We’ve got a van out at Kennedy. They’ve just reported in. The homers have moved down to the end of the walkway. There’s also information concerning a private corporate jet parked off the end of the terminal spoke. Hang on, Rushia, there’s something else coming in.’
Rushia waited, glancing back to the boarding gate for AA15. The line was moving and he would have to get a decision whether to board or not.
‘Their luggage has been off-loaded from the American Airlines flight.’ Grant’s voice was a shade more tense.
‘You’ve got guys in there?’
‘We’ve got ’em everywhere . . .’
‘Well, what do you want me to do? Go and grab a bagel, book a flight to Jallaboo or take the AA15?’
‘They
Rushia signed off and ambled back to the gate while Grant continued to give instructions to the New York officer. ‘You say the corporate jet’s a Gulfstream II?’
‘Grumman Gulfstream II, that’s the jet version, in the livery of a corporation called Silver Service, Inc.’
‘Okay, I’ll start the checks on Silver Service. You get your hooks on to that corporate’s flight plan and make damned certain he sticks to it. I don’t care if you have to go through the military satellites, the COMSATS, anything, but I want that bird tracked through every cloud. I want to know if it wanders one degree off course and I want to know if the captain farts. You’ve got enough staff?’
‘Only Dogface Two, and he did the day shift. I’m going to need about four extra sets of hands in here if we’re to do the job right. We’ve sleeping facilities for eight so I figure that we’re a tad undermanned.’
‘You’ve got six extra pairs as from midnight. I’ll see to it.’ Grant shut down and made two rapid telephone calls, then left his own Number Two in charge – a former field agent built like the proverbial brick wash-house and known to all as Mac. In M’s cabin, Grant found the old admiral talking with Bill Tanner and Franks. The doctor, Orr, and Q’ute had already left for London.
‘Your man and the girl’ve been cut out by a couple of Brokenclaw’s stalking-horses,’ Grant announced.
‘Serious?’ M clamped his pipe firmly between his teeth.
‘From the description, it’s probably a Chinese heavy known as Bone Bender Ding who’d rip out his own mother’s tongue if the money was right. The other’s a little guy called Fox. Ex-Special Forces and answers to
