Bond smiled. ‘Of course not, Marc-Ange. And everything is arranged. We will be married within the week. At the Consulate in Munich. I have two weeks’ leave, I thought we might spend the honeymoon in Kitzbühel. I love that place. So does she. You will come to the wedding?’
‘Come to the wedding!’ Marc-Ange exploded. ‘You will have a time keeping me away from Kitzbühel. Now then’ – he waved at the sideboard – ‘take your drink while I compose myself, I must stop being happy and be clever instead. My two best men, my organizers if you like, are waiting. I wanted to have you for a moment to myself.’
Bond poured himself a stiff Jack Daniel’s sourmash bourbon on the rocks and added some water. He walked over to the desk and took the right-hand of the three chairs that had been arranged in a semicircle facing the ‘Capu’. ‘I wanted that too, Marc-Ange. Because there are some things I must tell you which affect my country. I have been granted leave to tell them to you, but they must remain, as you put it, behind the Herkos Odonton – behind the hedge of your teeth. Is that all right?’
Marc-Ange lifted his right hand and crossed his heart, slowly, deliberately, with his forefinger. His face was now deadly serious, almost cruelly implacable. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk. ‘Continue.’
Bond told him the whole story, not even omitting his passage with Ruby. He had developed much love, and total respect, for this man. He couldn’t say why. It was partly animal magnetism and partly that Marc-Ange had so opened his heart to Bond, so completely trusted him with his own innermost secrets.
Marc-Ange’s face remained impassive throughout. Only his quick, animal eyes flickered continually across Bond’s face. When Bond had finished, Marc-Ange sat back. He reached for a blue packet of Gauloises, fixed one in the corner of his mouth and talked through the blue clouds of smoke that puffed continuously out through his lips, as if somewhere inside him there was a small steam-engine. ‘Yes, it is indeed a dirty business. It must be finished with, destroyed, and the man too. My dear James’ – the voice was sombre – ‘I am a criminal, a great criminal. I run houses, chains of prostitutes, I smuggle, I sell protection, whenever I can, I steal from the very rich. I break many laws and I have often had to kill in the process. Perhaps one day, perhaps very soon, I shall reform. But it is difficult to step down from being Capu of the Union. Without the protection of my men, my life would not be worth much. However, we shall see. But this Blofeld, he is too bad, too disgusting. You have come to ask the Union to make war on him, to destroy him. You need not answer. I know it is so. This is something that cannot be done officially. Your Chief is correct. You would get nowhere with the Swiss. You wish me and my men to do the job.’ He smiled suddenly. ‘That is the wedding present you talked of. Yes?’
‘That’s right, Marc-Ange. But I’ll do my bit. I’ll be there too. I want this man for myself.’
Marc-Ange looked at him thoughtfully. ‘That I do not like. And you know why I do not like it.’ He said mildly, ‘You are a bloody fool, James. You are already lucky to be alive.’ He shrugged. ‘But I am wasting my breath. You started on a long road after this man. And you want to come to the end of it. Is that right?’
‘That’s right. I don’t want someone else to shoot my fox.’
‘O.K., O.K. We bring in the others, yes? They will not need to know the reason why. My orders are my orders. But we all need to know how we are to bring this about. I have some ideas. I think it can be done and swiftly done. But it must also be well done, cleanly done. There must be no untidiness about this thing.’
Marc-Ange picked up his telephone and spoke into it. A minute later the door opened and two men came in and, with hardly a glance at Bond, took the other two chairs.
Marc-Ange nodded at the one next to Bond, a great ox of a man with the splayed ears and broken nose of a boxer or wrestler. ‘This is Ché-Ché – Ché-Ché le Persuadeur. And’ – Marc-Ange smiled grimly – ‘he is very adept at persuading.’
Bond got a glimpse of two hard yellow-brown eyes that looked at him quickly, reluctantly, and then went back to the Capu. ‘Plaisir.’
‘And this is Toussaint, otherwise known as “Le Pouff”. He is our expert with le plastique. We shall need plenty of plastique.’
‘We shall indeed,’ said Bond, ‘with pretty quick time-pencils.’
Toussaint leaned forward to show himself. He was thin and grey-skinned, with an almost fine Phoenician profile pitted with smallpox. Bond guessed that he was on heroin, but not as a mainliner. He gave Bond a brief, conspiratorial smile. ‘Plaisir.’ He sat back.
‘And this’ – Marc-Ange gestured at Bond – ‘is my friend. My absolute friend. He is simply “Le Commandant”. And now to business.’ He had been speaking in French, but he now broke into rapid Corsican which, apart from a few Italian and French roots, was incomprehensible to Bond. At one period he drew a large-scale map of Switzerland out of a drawer of his desk, spread it out, searched with his finger, and pointed to a spot in the centre of the Engadine. The two men craned forward, examined the map carefully and then sat back. Ché-Ché said something which contained the word Strasbourg and Marc-Ange nodded enthusiastically. He turned to Bond and handed him a large sheet of paper and a pencil. ‘Be a good chap and get to work on this, would you? A map of the Gloria buildings, with approximate sizes and distances from each other. Later we will do a complete maquette in plasticine so that there is no confusion. Every man will have his job to do’ – he smiled – ‘like the commandos in the war. Yes?’
Bond bent to his task while the others talked. The telephone rang. Marc-Ange picked it up. He jotted down a few words and rang off. He turned to Bond, his eyes momentarily suspicious. ‘It is a telegram for me from London signed Universal. It says, “The birds have assembled in the town and all fly tomorrow.” What is this, my friend?’
Bond kicked himself for his forgetfulness. ‘I’m sorry, Marc-Ange. I meant to tell you you might get a signal like that. It means that the girls are in Zürich and are flying to England tomorrow. It is very good news. It was important to have them out of the way.’
‘Ah, good! Very good indeed! That is fine news. And you were quite right not to have the telegram addressed to you. You are not supposed to be here or to know me at all. It is better so.’ He fired some more Corsican at the two men. They nodded their understanding.
After that, the meeting soon broke up. Marc-Ange examined Bond’s handiwork and passed it over to Toussaint. The man glanced at the sketch and folded it as if it were a valuable share-certificate. With short bows in Bond’s direction, the two men left the room.
Marc-Ange sat back with a sigh of satisfaction. ‘It goes well,’ he said. ‘The whole team will receive good danger money. And they love a good rough fight. And they are pleased that I am coming to lead them.’ He laughed slyly. ‘They are less certain of you, my dear James. They say you will get in the way. I had to tell them that you could outshoot and outfight the lot of them. When I say something like that, they have to believe me. I have never let them down yet. I hope I am right?’