'Will not!'
A ghost of animation returned to Sun's voice when he said, 'If you disobey me I'll have your throat cut and your body thrown overboard as soon as we're at sea.'
The silence roared and rustled and rang in Bond's ears. The girl's face changed again and suddenly, for no reason he could have specified, he became alert. He found himself watching with intense concentration.
'Okay,' said the girl at last, her eyes flickering round the room. 'But please... not look.'
'Certainly not. You need feel no embarrassment. Our friend Lohmann is a doctor. Not that he seems likely to look at you either.'
Lohmann sat alone on the bench, huddled up with his face in his hands. On the floor in front of him were the remains of a cleared-up pool of vomit. Bond glanced briefly at him, then back at the other two. He saw the girl, a trim figure in her long-sleeved turquoise jacket and green slacks, walk over towards the table and halt in front of it. Saw Sun turn towards him and study his face. Through half-closed lids, saw the girl look hastily over her shoulder, then make some movement at the table. Saw her turn and begin to speak.
'I have good idea. First I will kiss him some. Then strip.'
'Very well. You understand these matters. What you do doesn't concern me. All that is important to me is the results.'
Bond saw the girl walk up to him, her right arm moving in an unnatural way. Saw her face come down towards him - saw, at the same instant, Colonel Sun's shrivelled mouth twitch in distaste, saw him turn his back. Saw the girl glance over her shoulder again. Felt a movement in the area round his right wrist.
It was a few seconds before he identified this movement as that of a sharp knife shearing through the towelling that bound that wrist to the arm of the chair.
Chapter 20
'Goodbye, James'
'SOMETHING WRONG here, sir. I think this man... dead.'
The girl was intelligent. She had quickly re-wrapped the severed towelling round Bond's wrist so that it would fool a casual glance. The knife was clenched in his hand, hidden from above. Taking his cue, he dropped his head on to his chest, but kept his eyes open in a fixed stare.
'But that's impossible! He can't be dead!' There was nothing of the sleepwalker about Sun now. He hurried over to the chair. The girl moved aside, well out of the way. Sun's body bent forward over Bond. He began to say something. Then, with all his remaining strength, Bond brought the knife up and round and into Sun's back behind and just above the left hip. The man grunted and flung up an arm, made as if to throw himself clear, but his feet slipped on the irregular floor and he came down on one knee, half-leaning across Bond's left forearm. Now, with more weight behind it, the knife went in again, thumping up to the hilt this time, close to the shoulder-blade. Sun gave a moan of great weariness and gazed into Bond's face for a moment. The pewter-coloured eyes seemed full of accusation. The moment passed, the whites of the eyes rolled up, and Sun, the knife still in his back, fell over sideways and did not move.
The girl was sobbing, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth, her body bent at the waist. Lohmann, trembling all over, had got to his feet. Bond looked from one to the other.
'Give me the knife,' he said. His voice was thick and choked but it was his own.
Violently shaking her head, the girl turned away, groped towards the chair by the table and collapsed into it, her face hidden. Lohmann hesitated, then hurried forward and pulled out the knife from the middle of the spreading stain in Sun's tee-shirt. After wiping it he began fumblingly to cut through the towelling at Bond's left wrist. As he worked, he talked in a jerky babble.
'I wanted to help you earlier but I couldn't think of anything. He's a devil. He made me watch what he was doing to you. When he couldn't make me look he threatened me. Terrible things. I didn't know it was going to be like this. Just medical supervision, they said. Keeping people tranquillized. Easy. And this girl. I knew something would happen there eventually. He let her guess what she was in for, you see.'
Free at last, Bond stood up shakily, swayed and held on to the chair. His head hummed and swam. He had to force himself to speak. 'What's the time?'
'You've got about half an hour before they start shooting that thing off.' The doctor had stopped trembling. He became practical, even brisk. 'Willi's on his way up the hillside. Von Richter's at the firing-point, setting up.'
'What about the other people?'
Lohmann did not answer. He had been feeling Bond's pulse and looking him over. 'You won't be able to do anything strenuous as you are at the moment,' he said. 'I'll give you something to pull you round.' He went over and opened his bag.
'Why should I trust you?'
'If I hadn't made up my mind to change sides I'd have gone for help while you were still three-quarters tied up in that chair. Don't think I'm doing it out of love for you. He was going to have me killed as soon as the job was done. I'm sure of that. Here.' A hypodermic came up. 'Now this will give you a lift for about an hour. Then you'll collapse. But by that time you'll be either safe or dead. You asked me about the other people. Your friend, the man they brought in, is under sedation in the room next to your chief's, the one that was booked for you. He's not badly hurt. No key needed. Just the bolts.'
'What about the sedative?'
'It's quite light. A shot of this will bring him round. You'll have to take it with you. I'm not leaving this cellar until you come and tell me it's safe. I'm no good at fighting. There you are.' Lohmann handed over the loaded hypodermic in a cardboard box. 'It doesn't matter where you give it to him, as long as the point's well into the skin. All right?'
'Yes,' said Bond. Perhaps it was no more than imagination, or the joy of being free again, but already energy seemed to be returning to him and his head clearing. 'Where's my girl?'
'She's in a room in the passage on the other side of the landing, first door on the left.'
'De Graaf?'
