Ten minutes later, Bill Tanner joined him. "They're not very happy." He did not look too jovial himself. "But they've agreed to your request within certain limits."
"Which are?"
"That if they've heard nothing by one in the morning, they'll issue their own orders, one of which will probably be your arrest, for precipitating matters."
Behind Tanner the door opened and a worried-looking Minister stood just inside the room. "It appears that we've already got another problem." His eyes showed uncertainty. "We can't raise the SAS man at the Manor. The line's open, but he's not answering any signals."
"Voice signals?" Bond asked.
"No, we've got a code with a series of clicks, so that Tarn's people can't pick him up on any scanners they might be carrying."
"So we can go?"
"Tanner's told you about the deadline?"
"Yes, sir. That's okay by me. If you don't hear anything from us by one A.M., we'll need you to take over, because we won't be operative if you don't get a report."
They wore black. Black jeans, black rollnecks, black leather gloves, and black sneakers, while their heads were covered with black balaclava helmets. They carried weapons and equipment on broad black belts: Bond with the ASP, a radio that would allow him to signal London, a standard field compass, and a high-powered flashlight. Flicka with her Beretta and a couple of flash-bang grenades. They had left the maps and other gear in the car, parked in a side road a mite away from Hall's Manor.
Now they approached the old house from the west, through a wood and scrubland, occasionally taking bearings with the compass. It was in the wood that they found the SAS sergeant's body, and there was no need to switch on the flashlight to know that the man was dead. The black stain running from his neck told of a severed throat.
It made Bond even more apprehensive, for if a man trained to the perfection of this sergeant had been taken by surprise, he and Flicka would be easy game.
They crouched on the edge of the scrub, the ground uneven, the silhouette of the big house stark against the sky. There were no sounds except for predatory night animals. No lights. No sign of life, but they both knew this was no guarantee that Tarn and his crew were not out there, waiting and watching in the dark.
The luminous dial of Bond's watch showed it to be sixteen minutes past midnight. They had, in fact, made incredibly good time, and now he wondered if they should just go charging in, or take it stealthily all the way. The deadline was running out.
"Gently," he whispered to Flicka, and together, crouching low, they moved forward. "Shoot first and then ask the questions," he breathed again as they reached the house. He saw her nod, then put a hand out to touch the stone.
They circled the entire building, pausing close to windows, their eyes fully adjusted to the darkness and the now-slanted moon.
The front door was open, almost as they had left it on their last visit, but they knew others had already been there before them that night; might still be there, silent and un-moving in the shadows. Taking a deep breath, he nodded to Flicka and took a step inside the door into the hall, switching on the flashlight held next to the automatic pistol, firm in his hand. The smell of must and decay hit them like an invisible wall, but mixed with it were other scents: the smell of women's perfume and other luxurious lotions. If the house was truly empty, it had only recently been vacated.
Together they began moving from room to room on the ground floor, sweeping each room and passageway as they made slow progress, jumping at shadows, hearing the creaking of the old place, and standing, listening, waiting for another of Tarn's horrors to come leaping out at them.
The ground floor and the belowstairs area were clean, so, at last they began to make a steady progress up the stairs, which gave out loud cracks and little squeals under their feet.
The next floor was also clean, and they both felt the fringes of fear as they began to go on upward, toward the little room in which they had been held prisoner. As they moved along the short passage that led to the door, half open, there was a distinct noise from within the room: the sound of something straining, followed by a subtle hint of movement.
Bond raised the flashlight, his finger tightening on the trigger of his pistol as he edged inside the room. Flicka gave a little scream as she saw it, then began to hyperventilate. The light beam traversed the room quickly and then went back to the thing that hung, swinging from a crossbeam in the ceiling, centering on the face.
The bruising was still visible, though in death the face seemed to have swollen into a caricature of itself, the mouth open and tongue half out. He thought immediately that Trish Nuzzi had probably been strangled before they had hoisted her up on the rope, her lovely long black hair falling to her shoulders on either side of the grotesque face. The feet were together, but her arms seemed to be spread away from her body, making her look like a huge terrible doll hung up by some evil child.
Then, from directly behind them, came the husky voice. "A horrible way for her to die, wasn't it?" said Cathy.
13 – Hell of an Engagement Party
Flicka screamed, backing against the wall, as though trying to push her body through the lath, plaster, and stone, while Bond swung around, his flashlight's beam illuminating the empty doorway. Later he realized that, at that moment, he expected death to come hurtling in from either Cathy or Anna, but there was no one there, and the only sound was the macabre creaking of the rope around Trish Tarn's neck.
He allowed the flashlight to sweep completely around the room, the beam finally falling on a long black box in the corner. He went over to examine it and found it was a stereo tape machine, which clicked off as he reached it. From the back of the machine a wire had been stretched to another small gray square box screwed to the floor just inside the door. He recognized it immediately as an electronic eye, cheap but serviceable. The kind of thing you could buy at any electronics store to help fit a do-it-yourself security system. The eye had sent a signal to the tape machine as Bond and Flicka had crossed into the room, switching on a prepared tape.
"Meant to scare the pants off us." He played the light on Flicka and saw her relax.
"I know of better ways," she breathed, summoning a weak smile.
Neither of them could keep their eyes from the obscene corpse that swayed slightly on the rope, so he took her by the shoulders and gently led her from the room. In the passageway outside, he unhooked the radio from his belt and pressed the Send button. Within seconds a static-laden voice came faintly from the speaker:
"Micro One. Over."
"Brother James. Your SAS man is dead, and Lady Tarn is now really deceased. She's hanging in the attic at Hall's Manor. Over."
"Roger that, Brother James. Police and Security will be with you shortly. Over."
"Has The Committee broken up? Over."
"Roger that also, Brother James. You are to brief all interested parties at nine ack emma." He knew the voice at the distant end was Bill Tanner.
"Roger. Wilco and out."
Together they went downstairs to await the arrival of the authorities, Bond restless, moving from room to room, peeping into bare, moldy cupboards and examining doors and windows.
In what had once been a huge dining room he came across burned paper in the grate of an elaborate fireplace, so he stirred the black mess around, soiling his fingers but revealing a couple of small pieces of paper that had not been wholly consumed. One was the edge of a large sheet, and some numbers were still clearly visible. The other charred piece looked as though it had come from a memo pad – the kind of thing that executives carry around: little oblong pages that fit into a leather holder. The writing on this was only partly readable. He could make out Call, followed by the British Telecom get-out code and the German get-in code and a series of digits. There was a check mark against this telephone number and a scrawl that said, Book for four nights from and the day's date.