‘Yes, Sir,’ said Bond. He knew that this was M.’s way of saying that, if Bond had killed the men, M. would make sure that neither Bond nor the Service was mentioned at the inquest.
‘Anyway,’ said M., ‘they were small people. This man Jack Spang, or Rufus Saye, or A B C, or whatever he calls himself. I want you to get him. As far as I can make out he’s going back down the pipeline. Sealing it off. Probably killing as he goes. The end of the line is this dentist. Try and get them both. I’ve had 2804 working alongside the dentist for the last week or so, and Freetown think they’ve got the local picture clear enough. But I want to close this case and get you back on your proper job. This has been a messy business. Never liked it from the first. More luck than good management that we’ve got as far as we have.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ said Bond.
‘What about this Case girl?’ said M. ‘I’ve talked to Vallance. He doesn’t want to prosecute unless you feel strongly about it.’
Was M.’s voice a shade too indifferent?
Bond tried to prevent his answer being too breezy. ‘She’s been a great help, Sir,’ he said, easily he hoped. ‘Perhaps we could decide when I’ve put in my final report.’
‘Where is she now?’
The black receiver was getting slippery in Bond’s hand. ‘She’s on her way to London in a Daimler Hire, Sir. I’m putting her up in my flat. In the spare room, that is. Very good housekeeper. She’ll look after her until I get back. I’m sure she’ll be all right, Sir.’ Bond took out a handkerchief and wiped the sweat off his face.
‘I’m sure,’ said M. There was no irony in his voice. ‘All right, then. Well, best of luck.’ There was a pause. ‘Look after yourself. And,’ the voice at the other end was suddenly gruff, ‘don’t think I’m not pleased with the way things have gone so far. Exceeded your brief, of course, but you seem to have stood up to these people very well. Goodbye, James.’
‘Goodbye, Sir.’
Bond looked up into the spangled sky and thought of M., and of Tiffany, and hoped that this would really be the end, and that it would be quick and easy, and that he would soon be home.
The smuggler from the mines stood and waited, holding the fourth torch in his hand. There it was. Coming right across the moon. Hell of a noise as usual. That was another risk he’d be glad to get away from.
Down it came, and now it was hovering twenty feet above his head. The hand came out and flashed A, and the man on the ground winked back the B and the C. Then the rotor blades flattened and softly the great iron insect sank to the ground.
The dust settled. The diamond smuggler took his hand away from his eyes and watched the pilot climb down his small ladder to the ground. He was wearing a flying helmet and goggles. Unusual. And he looked taller than the German. The man’s spine tingled. Who was this? He walked slowly to meet him.
‘Got the stuff?’ Two cold eyes under straight black brows looked sharply out from behind the goggles. They were hidden as the man’s head moved and the moon caught the glass. Now there were just two round blazing white circles in the middle of the shiny black leather helmet.
‘Yes,’ said the man from the mines nervously. ‘But where’s the German?’
‘He won’t be coming again.’ The two white circles stared blindly at the smuggler. ‘I am A B C. I am closing down the pipeline.’
It was an American voice, hard and flat and final.
‘Oh.’
Automatically the smuggler’s hand went inside his shirt. He took out the moist packet and held it out as if it was some kind of a peace offering. Like the scorpion, a month earlier, he sensed the raised stone above him.
‘Give me a hand with the gas.’
It was the voice of an overseer giving an order to a coolie, but the smuggler stepped quickly forward to obey.
They worked in silence. Then it was finished and they were on the ground again. The smuggler had been thinking desperately. He summoned up the voice of an equal partner, the voice of someone who knew the score and had an equal control.
He peered into the patch of indigo blackness where the pilot stood with his hand on the ladder.
‘I’ve been thinking things over and I’m afraid ...’
And then the voice stopped and the lips drew back from the teeth in the open mouth, and the mouth began to make a noise between a snarl and a scream.
The gun in the pilot’s hand stammered three times. The smuggler said ‘Oh’ in an obsequious voice. He pitched backwards into the dust and gave one heave and lay still.
‘Don’t move.’ The clanging voice came over the plain with the screeching echo of the amplifier. ‘You’re covered.’ There was the sound of an engine starting up.
The pilot didn’t wait to wonder about the voice. He leapt for the ladder. The door of the cockpit slammed and there was the whirr of the self-starter. The engine roared and the rotor blades swung and slowly gathered speed until they were two whirlpools of silver. Then there was a jerk and the helicopter was in the air and climbing vertically straight up into the sky.
