His strides lengthened; somehow he was actually running, head down, forcing his riven body through treacly air, for it was as though what he breathed had solidified, surrounded him, and was trying to force him back.
There was no sense of time now, just the determination to ride it out, to get to the finish, to reach a point where the pain would cease.
He felt encased in blood and sweat, so that he was constantly using the back of his hand to clear his eyes. People still surrounded him and the drumming began to get louder and louder, filling his head, then his whole being.
Quite without warning, the drumming stopped. Silence followed, with only his heavy breathing and the quick thump of his heart in his ears to tell him he was still alive. Then, a few paces away, he saw the white rock and his bow and arrow lying ready.
With a mighty leap forward he seemed to gather strength from somewhere, launching himself at the weapons. One hand grasped the bow, the other caught hold of the arrow.
His vision blurred and he knew his knees were buckling under him, but his sight cleared enough to position the arrow against the bowstring, to pull back on the pressure of the string and lift himself to his full height, turning in the direction where instinct told him his target waited.
Brokenclaw, covered in blood, his huge body fighting to stay upright, was already drawing back the bowstring carrying his arrow until the bow was at arm’s length and the missile wavered in Bond’s direction.
Bond could not get his feet into place. He could not maintain the stance. He knew that Brokenclaw had won; he even thought the arrow was already launched, and at that moment, his legs gave way and he fell to his knees.
Brokenclaw’s arrow hissed inches above his head, thudding into the earth behind him.
One more push, one more reach into whatever reserve of strength remained. He straightened, found his eyes clear of sweat, saw his target, swaying but upright, the bow, meant for him, falling to the earth.
Just before he shot, Bond imagined he could see Brokenclaw’s eyes bearing in on his own, but this, he thought later, was probably his imagination, as was the feeling of a great arc of evil surging from the man’s body.
Bond knew he was on target. He loosed the arrow and saw it strike firmly into Brokenclaw’s throat. There was a noise which he recognised, he had read of it somewhere, the noise like the muffled murmur of a great torrent advancing through woodland, a howl of despair.
He clearly saw Brokenclaw clutch at the arrow, as though trying to tear it from his throat. Then the huge Chinese Indian gave a long, hoarse choke, his hands dropped from the attempt to withdraw the arrow, his arms flew outwards, flapping like some wounded bird cut down by a shot. They were still moving in a flying motion as his body hit the ground.
‘James! Behind you! Behind you!’ He knew the man’s voice, and even as he turned, saw that the Indian, Even Both Ways, was poised on the rim of the oval bowl of ground surrounding the encampment, his bowstring drawn back, the shaft ready to fly. At the same moment, there was the sound of a shot which echoed around the camp as Even Both Ways threw back his hands and was tossed like a piece of garbage into the air.
Bond tottered forwards towards Brokenclaw’s body, lying very still. Then his knees gave way and he sank into a grey mist.
‘Hey, James? James, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay.’
The mist swam in front of his eyes and he was again submerged in a great undulating wave of pain, but he could just make out Ed Rushia’s craggy face above him.
‘Hell, Ed,’ he croaked. ‘I said only in the last resort. I had to do this on my own.’
‘You did, James.’ A different voice. ‘Ed saved you when one of Brokenclaw’s men tried to take you out. It was all over by then. Oh, James, darling. What you did was . . .’
He knew the voice belonged to Chi-Chi, but somehow it began to slink away into another land as the darkness came in.
They operated five times during the next six weeks. In spite of M wanting Bond to be moved back to the United Kingdom, the Americans insisted they should do everything. ‘In any case, we need your boy for a good debriefing,’ John Grant had told the chief of the British Service, so M gave in with grace.
Grant’s people came to see him in the Naval hospital at regular intervals, and he learned a little more about the late Brokenclaw Lee’s empire. For one thing, everybody was convinced that his melting pot of Indian tribes in the Chelan Mountains had been for some eventual purpose. ‘They seemed peaceful enough,’ Grant told him, ‘but we figure he only took in the most basic types, those who would return to the old brutal ways. No reservation Indian would ever think of performing the o-kee-pa torture rite nowadays. We’re pretty sure he had some reason for building a private Indian army that had nothing to do with peace.’
Eventually, Bond was able to walk again with hardly any pain. The damage inflicted on his legs had been worse than that on his back, but the doctors said that, eventually, he would only have the scars to prove that it happened at all.
Sue Chi-Ho visited Bond every day, and every day thanked him for what he had done. ‘I have been reading the lives of those two whose names we took,’ she told him one afternoon. ‘Abelard and Héloïse. I came across a quote from one of her letters to him – after she went into a convent and he lost his manhood. It seems something good to live by. She wrote—
May it be sudden, whatever you plan for us; may man’s mind
Be blind to the future. Let him hope on in his fears.
I am glad we’re blind to the future. If I’d known what lay in store for us in Operation Curve, I’d never have gone ahead. I don’t care what happens now, I just don’t want to know what tomorrow will bring.’
Finally they told Bond he could leave the hospital. Chi-Chi picked him up late one afternoon and drove him back to her apartment. He had telephoned M privately and had been given four weeks’ sick leave, though they both knew there would be a year of physiotherapy before Bond’s muscles could be completely restored.
The apartment was back to normal, and even the shattered glass on the museum poster had been repaired.
‘This is where we came in,’ Bond said.
‘Yes, but tonight will be different, James. I really have planned a wonderful meal. Just sit down, relax and I’ll get it started.’ She went into the kitchen, and a few seconds later Bond heard her explode with anger. She came storming out – ‘Guess what I’ve done? I’ve forgotten to get the wine. James, would you be a darling and . . . ?’
‘No!’ Then he saw her begin to laugh. ‘Absolutely no! No way! Never! Negative and out!’
John Gardner served with the Fleet Air Arm and Royal Marines before embarking on a long career as a thriller writer, including international bestsellers The Nostradamus Traitor, The Garden of Weapons, Confessor and Maestro. In 1981 he was invited by Glidrose Publications Ltd – now known as Ian Fleming Publications – to revive James Bond in a brand new series of novels. To find out more visit John Gardner’s website at www.john-gardner.com or the Ian Fleming website at www.ianfleming.com
By John Gardner
Licence Renewed
For Special Services
Icebreaker
Role of Honour
Nobody Lives For Ever
No Deals, Mr Bond
Scorpius
Win, Lose or Die
Licence to Kill
Brokenclaw
The Man from Barbarossa