"Off the island. If you want to know, we've had what you might call a falling-out. He stormed out of the hotel and said he wouldn't be back."
"You tellin' the truth, honey?" Beth came toward her. Close up she was a little older than Flicka had thought. Late thirties. Her fingers were heavy with rings and her eyes looked red and sore, like someone with conjunctivitis, but they did not stop moving, flicking from side to side as though she had the extraordinary vision of a chameleon.
"You tellin' the truth, honey?" she repeated, and before Flicka had a chance to reply, Beth's right hand whipped back and slapped her full and hard on the cheek, the heavy rings scraping at her flesh and knocking her head sideways.
She fell against the wall, steadied herself, and tried not to show how much the blow had hurt her. "Talk to me, bitch." Beth's voice had a slightly slurred note, and it crossed Flicka's mind that the woman was on some kind of drug.
"I've told you -" Her words were cut off by another stinging, pain-drenched slap. This time harder, and followed by an even heavier backhander to her other cheek.
Taken by surprise, and stark naked from the shower, there was little she could do, but she had to fight back. Turning her body to present a smaller target, she launched herself toward the woman, one hand chopping at her assailant's neck. It was like hitting a solid punching bag and only seemed to enrage Beth even more, for out of nowhere a ringed hand caught her hard with two heavy blows to the breasts.
"Talk to me, bitch. Where's he gone?"
"I don't… Truly, I don't know."
"The truth, honey. The truth shall set you free, that's what's in the Good Book. Now, set yourself free." The hand rose again, and this time Flicka could hardly see from the pain that saturated her face. The backhander that followed almost made her black out, but she could still hear the voice, intimidating and relentless. "The truth, honey, just tell me the truth, then we can all have some real fun."
She heard her own voice from what seemed to be a long way off. "I've told you the truth. I don't -"
The pain again. Now it was as if she were living in her own private world of agony, though the voice of her conscience repeated to her again and again: Don't tell them anything. Keep James safe.
She felt for the corner of the wall with her feet and tried to push herself toward Beth, hands bunched into fists, striking out for the woman's throat. Before her hands got anywhere near their target, another blow sent her sprawling back onto the floor.
"Talk to me, bitch."
"I really don't know. Stop. I don't…"
She prayed for the darkness of unconsciousness or even death, and knew that at least one of her cheekbones was almost certainly broken. The hands of this black horror, reinforced by the heavy rings, were like pieces of steel. The hurt filling her life.
Again: "The truth shall set you free, honey. Where's he gone?"
Then one more time, to the left cheek and then the right. She felt blood wet on her cheek and running down her nose, while Beth's voice sounded distorted. "Tell me the truth, bitch." Crack. A whole avalanche of torment. A numbness as she cannoned off the wall, and voices coming from miles away, from the end of a long dark tunnel.
"You've done it again, Beth. She's out."
Flicka could hardly make out the words.
"Then I guess she tellin' the truth. You've seen this before, Mo -"
"Don't call me Mo. The name's Maurice."
"She don't know where he is, that's for sure."
"Then we'd better get her out of here. Take her to Max's place. You can work on her quietly there, just in case you're wrong."
"I'm seldom wrong, baby. You know that. She tellin' the truth, so why don' I just set her free here and now?"
"No. Let's get her across the island. You've got the white coats in the car. Let's do it. Let's…"
The voices faded as Flicka slipped deeper into the comfort of oblivion. She could feel nothing, nor could she understand anything.
Bond drove fast, but with great concentration. His conscience was already pricking him, because of course he knew Flicka had been right. They should have called in. Passed the whole business over to their superiors and got out, knowing that Tarn and his mad, obsessive plan would come to nothing with the deployment of the right forces.
Yet a part of him wanted to see it through. Was it a question of glory? A reluctance to give up the life of danger for a desk and the boredom of assigning other people to this kind of work?
Then he switched his mind away from those questions. He glanced at the dashboard digital clock. Ten P.M.; he had eleven hours, and if nobody was guarding the submarine he could set his little jewels. For a couple of seconds he wondered what intuition had made him ask Ann Reilly for these particular items. Each consisted of two pounds of plastique explosive, a recently developed substance with three times the effect of Semtex. Two pounds of this stuff would do a lot of damage, especially if it were placed in the right spots. The heat it generated, for one thing, had the power of a thermal lance and it could blow through steel as though it were butter.
Pushed into the two-pound blocks of plastique was a fuse with the latest in electronic timing devices. Small, with tiny powerful batteries, the fuse could be set like the mechanism on a miniature alarm clock. The dial on each was no bigger than an American 25-cent piece, and could be activated, using a tiny screwdriver, over a twenty-four-hour period. Now, he had plans for these deadly devices, and once they were set, the military would not have to waste time trying to find the submarine. All he could do was hope and pray that the sub had been left unguarded that night.
He turned his thoughts to Q'ute's ingenuity. Not only had she got the explosive devices to him, but her note had been very specific concerning the other item – large and cumbersome. It would have to be somewhere out in the open, and just where he needed it. She had been very definite about that, and considering the lack of hiding places and the number of people who – during the day – would be passing near anywhere in San Juan, the task of dumping it for him really would have to be left until the last moment. How would Q'ute know when the last moment had arrived? He had missed something all the way, and now logic told him one new significant truth. The drop-off for this equipment led to the indisputable fact that there were other active Service people on the island, ready to move in should he need them.
What was it Q'ute had written? Some of our friends will see to it that you get the thing if you really need it.
With a sudden feeling of elation, he knew what this meant, and felt a fool for not envisaging it until now. Only one kind of operative was up to hiding and waiting for the right moment to leave the piece of equipment he had in mind. He cursed himself. Of course; and of course they should have called London. He would put money on there being members of both the SAS and the American elite Delta Force waiting it out, watching him, ready to move in as soon as they received signals. Flicka was right, he told himself. They could have left it to London and Washington. Everything was already in place, and if the elite forces had done their job properly, they would know by now that something was about to go down.
It flashed through his mind that perhaps he should drive into Ponce and make a call from some public telephone booth, but he stubbornly dismissed the idea. He would try to set the explosives, get away, and call Flicka to put things in motion.
He turned off at Ponce, taking the road along the coast, eventually finding the narrow trail that led to the clump of trees from which they had observed the Tarn mansion.
Before leaving the car, he pulled on the wet suit and snapped the belt into place, checking the equipment in the pouches and clips. He then walked up into the trees and looked down on the Tarn compound. There was no sign of life below, save for one lighted window. The submarine crew were either sleeping until dawn or already down in the cave, readying the boat for sea.