In the deafening silence, the near-side front wheel whispered briefly on and then squeaked to a stop.
Le Chiffre and his two men only had to walk a few yards from their ambush.
‘Put your guns away and get him out,’ he ordered brusquely. ‘I’ll keep you covered. Be careful of him. I don’t want a corpse. And hurry up, it’s getting light.’
The two men got down on their knees. One of them took out a long knife and cut some of the fabric away from the side of the convertible hood and took hold of Bond’s shoulders. He was unconscious and immovable. The other squeezed between the upturned car and the bank and forced his way through the crumpled window-frame. He eased Bond’s legs, pinned between the steering-wheel and the fabric roof of the car. Then they inched him out through a hole in the hood.
They were sweating and filthy with dust and oil by the time they had him lying in the road.
The thin man felt his heart and then slapped his face hard on either side. Bond grunted and moved a hand. The thin man slapped him again.
‘That’s enough,’ said Le Chiffre. ‘Tie his arms and put him in the car. Here,’ he threw a roll of flex to the man. ‘Empty his pockets first and give me his gun. He may have got some other weapons, but we can get them later.’
He took the objects the thin man handed him and stuffed them and Bond’s Beretta into his wide pockets without examining them. He left the men to it and walked back to the car. His face showed neither pleasure nor excitement.
It was the sharp bite of the wire flex into his wrists that brought Bond to himself. He was aching all over as if he had been thrashed with a wooden club, but when he was yanked to his feet and pushed towards the narrow side-road where the engine of the Citro‰n was already running softly, he found that no bones were broken. But he felt in no mood for desperate attempts to escape and allowed himself to be dragged into the back seat of the car without resisting.
He felt thoroughly dispirited and weak in resolve as well as in his body. He had had to take too much in the past twenty-four hours and now this last stroke by the enemy seemed almost too final. This time there could be no miracles. No one knew where he was and no one would miss him until well on into the morning. The wreck of his car would be found before very long, but it would take hours to trace the ownership to him.
And Vesper. He looked to the right, past the thin man who was lying back with his eyes closed. His first reaction was one of scorn. Damn fool girl getting herself trussed up like a chicken, having her skirt pulled over her head as if the whole of this business was some kind of dormitory rag. But then he felt sorry for her. Her naked legs looked so childlike and defenseless.
‘Vesper,’ he said softly.
There was no answer from the bundle in the corner and Bond suddenly had a chill feeling, but then she stirred slightly.
At the same time the thin man caught him a hard backhanded blow over the heart.
‘Silence.’
Bond doubled over with the pain and to shield himself from another blow, only to get a rabbit punch on the back of the neck which made him arch back again, the breath whistling through his teeth.
The thin man had hit him a hard professional cutting blow with the edge of the hand. There was something rather deadly about his accuracy and lack of effort. He was now again lying back, his eyes closed. He was a man to make you afraid, an evil man. Bond hoped he might get a chance of killing him.
Suddenly the boot of the car was thrown open and there was a clanking crash. Bond guessed that they had been waiting for the third man to retrieve the carpet of spiked chain-mail. He assumed it must be an adaptation of the nail-studded devices used by the Resistance against German staff-cars.