lunged carelessly. Bond easily lifted the knife arm away and up, then stepped in, gripping the wrist in both hands, a solid compliance hold, and bent backwards until the knife fell to the ground. He assessed the assailant’s strength and his mad determination. He made a decision… and he twisted further until the wrist cracked.
The man cried out and sank to his knees, then dropped into a sitting position, face pale. His head lolled to the side and Bond kicked the knife away. He frisked the man carefully and took a small automatic pistol from his pocket, along with a roll of duct tape. A pistol? Why didn’t he just shoot me? Bond wondered.
He slipped the gun into his pocket and collected his Walther. He grabbed the man’s phone – to whom had he texted the photo of him and Jordaan? If it had been to Dunne alone, could Bond find and incapacitate the Irishman before he reported to Hydt?
He scrolled through the call and text logs. Thank God, he had sent nothing. He’d simply been videoing Bond.
What was the point of that?
Then he had his answer.
‘
The Balkan obscenity explained everything.
Bond went through the man’s papers and confirmed he was with the JSO, the Serbian paramilitary group. His name was Nicholas Rathko.
He was moaning now, cradling his arm. ‘You let my brother die! You abandoned him! He was your partner on that assignment. You
Rathko’s brother had been the younger of the BIA agents with Bond on Sunday night near Novi Sad.
Bond knew now how the man had found him in Dubai. To secure the BIA’s co-operation in Serbia, the ODG and Six had given the senior security people in Belgrade Bond’s real name and mission. After his brother had died, Rathko and his comrades at the JSO would have put together a full-scale operation to find Bond, using contacts through NATO and Six. They’d learnt Bond was bound for Dubai. Of course, Bond now realised, it had been
And the purpose?
Probably not arrest and rendition. Rathko had most likely been planning to video Bond confessing or apologising – or perhaps to record his torture and death.
‘You call yourself Nicholas or Nick?’ Bond asked, crouching.
‘
‘Listen to me. I’m sorry your brother lost his life. But he had no business being in the BIA. He was careless and he wouldn’t follow orders. He was the reason we lost the target.’
‘He was young.’
‘That’s no excuse. It wouldn’t be an excuse for me and it wasn’t an excuse for you when you were with Arkan’s Tigers.’
‘He was only a boy.’ Tears glistened in the man’s eyes, whether from the pain of the broken wrist or the sorrow he felt for his dead brother, Bond couldn’t tell.
Bond looked down the alleyway and saw Bheka Jordaan and some SAPS officers sprinting towards him. He bent down, picked up the man’s knife and sliced through the trip wire.
He squatted beside the Serb. ‘We’ll get you to a doctor.’
Then he heard a woman’s voice call sharply, ‘Stop!’
He glanced at Bheka Jordaan. ‘It’s all right. I have his weapons.’
But then he realised that her pistol was aimed at himself. He frowned and stood up.
‘Leave him alone!’ she snapped.
Two SAPS officers stepped between Bond and Rathko. One hesitated, then carefully took the knife from his hand.
‘He’s a Serbian intelligence agent. He was trying to kill me. He’s the one who murdered that CIA asset in Dubai the other day.’
‘That doesn’t mean you can cut his throat.’ Her dark eyes were narrow with anger.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You are in my country. You will obey the law!’
The other officers were staring at him, Bond saw, some angrily. He glanced at Jordaan and stepped away, gesturing to her to follow.
Jordaan did so and when they were out of earshot, she continued harshly, ‘You won. He was down, he wasn’t a threat. Why were you going to kill him?’
‘I wasn’t,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you. You told me to stay in the house with my grandmother. You didn’t ask me to call my officers because you didn’t want witnesses while you tortured and killed him.’
‘I assumed you’d call for back-up. I didn’t want you to leave your grandmother in case he wasn’t working alone.’
But Jordaan wasn’t listening. She raged, ‘You come here, to our country, with that double-0 number of yours. Oh, I know all about what you do!’
Finally Bond understood the source of her anger with him. It had nothing to do with any attempted flirtation, nothing to do with the fact that he represented the oppressive male. She despised his shameless disregard for the law: the Level 1 missions – assassinations – for the ODG.
He stepped forward and said in a low murmur, barely able to control his anger, ‘In a few instances when there’s been no other way to protect my country, yes, I’ve taken a life. And only if I’ve been ordered to. I don’t do it because I want to. I don’t enjoy it. I do it to save people who deserve to be saved. You may call it a sin – but it’s a necessary sin.’
‘There was no need to kill him,’ she spat back.
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘The knife… I saw-’
‘He left a trap. The trip wire.’ He gestured. ‘I cut it so nobody would fall. As for him,’ he nodded towards the Serb, ‘I was just telling him we’d get him to a doctor. Ask him. I rarely take someone to hospital when I’m about to murder them.’ He turned and pushed past the two police officers blocking his way. His eyes defied them to try and stop him. Without looking back, he called, ‘I’ll need that film developed as soon as possible. And the IDs of everyone coming to Hydt’s tomorrow.’ He strode away from them down the alley.
Soon he was in the Subaru, streaking past the colourful houses of Bo-Kaap, driving far faster than was safe through the winding, picturesque streets.
52
A restaurant featuring local cuisine beckoned and James Bond, still angry from his run-in with Bheka Jordaan, decided he needed a strong drink.
He’d enjoyed the stew at Jordaan’s house but the portion was rather small, as if doled out with the intent that the diner finish quickly and depart. Bond now ordered a hearty meal of
