Fekkesh and an impulse to pursue this terrifying giant with the gleaming teeth. There was no choice. Fekkesh came first. Bond held his gun low and edged his shoulder round one of the thirty-ton blocks of stone that formed the base of the pyramid. His heart sank as he saw a foot protruding from the shadows. He knelt down swifdy and felt for the man’s heart. Something glistened in the darkness; a pool of blood spreading from the neck and shoulders. Someone, there were no prizes for guessing who must have chopped half through the man’s neck. Bond forgot about the heart and pushed back the man’s head. The face with the wide staring eyes was recognizable. Fekkesh. .
Swiftly and skilfully Bond went through the pockets of Fekkesh’s shabby suit. The breast pocket yielded a small diary. Bond quickly felt inside his own jacket and produced a silver pencil with a number of modifications by Aspreys. Two presses of the clip turned it into a torch. Bond flicked through the diary with the aid of its thin beam. The address section was empty and there were no telephone numbers. The day-to-day entries seemed all connected with work. Bond’s sketchy Arabic unscrambled ‘Meeting of Khem-en-du Excavation Committee’ and a luncheon appointment with the directors of the Coptic Museum. There was even a note to remember Felicca’s birthday. Some tiny and nearly dried-up reservoir of sentiment in Bond was pleased to see that this date had passed. He hoped the lovers had enjoyed it.
There was an entry for the following Thursday: ‘Max Kalba, Mujaba Club. 7.30 pm.’ Neither the name nor the club meant anything to Bond but it was the only lead he had unless he searched Fekkesh’s flat and could get into his office at the Cairo Museum. That and find the big man. There could not be many countries in the world where he would find it easy to hide in a crowd. Bond shivered as he looked down at the broken body at his feet. How could the neck have been torn open like that? It was almost as if - no. He rejected the suggestion as being too horrible, too absurd. But, there again, he had once examined a rat after a terrier had killed it and - almost against his will, Bond’s gaze dropped once more to the bulging eyes, the thin sharp-nosed features, the blood beginning to coagulate around the jagged puncture marks. Fighting against nausea, he thrust the diary into his pocket and turned away from this place of terrible death.
Outside, it was dark and the only sound was the distant one of car doors slamming and tour operators calling the faithful to get into their Russian-built coaches. The son-et-lnmiere must be over. Bond brushed the sand from his knees and began to walk round the great black bulk of Cheops to where the car headlights were sawing at the darkness. What had Napoleon calculated? That there was enough stone in the three pyramids of Gizeh to build a wall ten feet high around France - Bond preferred to deal in feet even when the calculations were being made by Napoleon.
Bond heard the soft footfall in the sand too late and turned the wrong way. A flash of lightning struck him behind the right ear and a deep pit opened up at his feet. He tumbled slowly into it and looking back as he rolled over and over could see that the triangular face of Cheops was rising not four hundred and fifty-five feet into the sky, but for ever until it blotted out the heavens like a great black cliff.
Shock Tactics
Somebody was tapping on Bond’s head and asking to come in. The sound was a long way away and heard through many closed doors but it was distinctive and persistent. Bond waited, hoping that whoever it was would go away, but the sound continued, rhythmic and jarring. With each tap a tiny filament of pain ran through Bond’s brain. It was no good. He would have to see who was there. Grumbling to himself he began to force his eyes open. How difficult it was. He must have been deep in sleep. Curse them for disturbing him. Now, who was there in the thick swirling mist? Bond screwed up his eyes to concentrate. The face was like a hallowee’en mask, round and shiny with two deep-socketed eyes that seemed to be pouring out rivulets of tears. The tears fell like twin cascades to be sucked into the recessed corners of a broad, straight mouth thatched with a white moustache of horizontal hairs. Bond was puzzled. None of the features moved. And there was no nose. And the strange lustre of the perfect round face. It was shiny. Shiny as a button.
Slowly, Bond’s mind cleared and he realized what he was looking at. One of the buttons on the shirt of the man who was standing in front of him. . .
‘He is conscious.’ The voice was Russian.
A rough hand jerked Bond's head backwards and he looked into a square, clumsily-featured face that might have been whittled with a blunt penknife. So, the two men at the
Bond forgot about the throbbing lump on the back of his head. He knew what the box was and he knew what they were going to do to him. The man who had been connecting the battery leads stood up and nodded to his companion. They were ready. There was no sign of the big man.
Bond looked round the shabby, featureless room and tried to find items to concentrate on. If you were being tortured it helped to focus on something. Direct yourself away from the agony and the information you were supposed to be giving to some totally unrelated, meaningless object. Bond’s eyes glanced off the naked lightbulb and lit upon a calendar on the far wall. It showed the Egyptian version of a pin-up, a pretty black-haired girl showing her face but nothing else and extending a shy hand towards a motor scooter. She gazed at Bond as she must have gazed at the cameraman, not quite certain what either of them was doing. Yes, she would do. They would see this thing through together.
‘Mr Bond.’ It was a surprise to hear his own name, and spoken in good English with only the faintest trace of accent. ‘The answer to one simple question can save you excruciating pain and mutilation. Where is the blueprint of the tracking system?’ Despite his predicament, Bond felt like laughing out loud. ‘I don’t have the tracking system.’
The man holding the metal claws began to tap them together like castanets.
‘Then why did you kill Fekkesh?'
The question threw Bond. They had killed Fekkesh. The big gorilla with a mouth like a barracuda had chewed a hole out of his neck. What were they getting at? They must be laying some kind of trap. Did they think that Fekkesh had handed over the blueprint before he was killed? Or perhaps hidden it somewhere for Bond to find? That must be it. They wanted to tie up the loose ends.
Bond took a deep breath before replying because he knew that his answer was going to cause him a lot of pain.
‘Sorry, chum. You’ve drawn the same answer. I didn’t kill him.' No flicker of emotion passed through the man’s face. He shrugged and then bent forward and started to unbuckle Bond’s belt. Bond’s stomach froze. If the beads of sweat that were pouring off him ran over it they would turn into icicles. He looked towards the man standing by the metal box and then turned away. The man’s eyes were glistening lasciviously. Pain was his mistress. The top of Bond’s trousers was unhooked and the buttons undone one by one. He was like a child being taken to the lavatory. Then the trousers and underpants were pulled down to his knees. Bond sought the surprised eyes of the girl in the calendar. It was strange but he felt embarrassed looking at her. She was like the girl at the dentist who hands you a glass of pink water that your numb mouth finds it difficult to spit into. Her disdaining smile apologizing for your clumsiness.
‘This is your final chance. Where is the microfilm?’
‘Go and — yourself! ! ’
The man did not reward Bond’s obscenity with a slap across the face. He was a professional and he could afford to conserve his energy. An electric current passed through the genitals was a million times more effective than beating a man’s face to a bloody pulp. He stood back and his accomplice hurried forward with the claws. There was about him an indecent, scuttling haste, like a crab closing with a cracked mollusc. His breath stank and Bond turned his head away from the noisome odour. He glimpsed the claws sprung wide and then winced as the metal closed about his soft flesh. This pain was bad enough. How could he stand more?
The operator bit his lip for an instant and then returned to the machine. He moved his hand to the on/off switch and then turned to Bond as if to photograph him in repose. Bond could feel him estimating how much give
