“Well, we’re going to find out,” said Mr Spang, “and go on finding out until the guy croaks, and if he thinks he can take it, he’s got another think coming.” He looked over Bond’s head at the guard. “Wint, get Kidd and come back with the boots.”
The boots?
Bond sat silent, gathering his strength and his courage. It would be a waste of time to argue with Mr Spang or to try to escape, fifty miles out in the desert. He had got out of worse jams. So long as they didn’t intend to kill him yet. So long as he gave nothing away. There was Ernie Cureo and there was Felix Leiter. There might just possibly be Tiffany Case. He looked across at her. Her head was bent. She was looking carefully at her fingernails.
Bond heard the two guards come up behind him.
“Take him out on the platform,” said Mr Spang. Bond saw the corner of his tongue come out and slightly touch the thin lips. “Brooklyn stomping. Eighty percenter. Kay?”
“Okay, Boss.” It was the voice belonging to Wint. It sounded greedy.
The two hooded men came up and sat down side by side on a dark red chaise longue that ran down the car opposite Bond. They put football boots down on the thick carpet beside them and started to unlace their shoes.
20
FLAMES COMING OUT OF THE TOP
THE black frogman’s suit fitted tightly. It hurt everywhere. Why the hell hadn’t Strangways made certain the Admiralty got his measurements right? And it was very dark under the sea and the currents were strong, pulling him against the coral. He would have to swim hard against them. But now something had got him by the arm: What the hell…?
“James. For Chrissake. James.” She took her mouth away from his ear. This time she pinched the naked bloodstained arm as hard as she could and at last Bond’s eyes opened between their puffed lids and he looked up at her from the wooden floor and gave a shuddering sigh.
She tugged at him, terrified that he would slip away from her again. He seemed to understand and he rolled over and struggled on to hands and knees, his head hanging down towards the ground like a wounded animal.
“Can you walk?”
“Wait.” The thick whisper coming through the cracked lips sounded strange to him. Perhaps she hadn’t understood. “Wait,” he said again, and his mind started exploring his body to see what was left of it. He could feel his feet and his hands. He could move his head from side to side. He could see the bars of moonlight on the floor. He had been able to hear her. It ought to be all right, but he just didn’t want to move. His will-power had gone. He just wanted to sleep. Or even to die. Anything to lessen the pain that was in him and all over him, stabbing, hammering, grinding him-and to kill the memory of the four boots thudding into him, and the grunts coming from the two hooded figures.
Directly he thought of the two men and of Mr Spang, the will to live came into Bond in a flood and he said “Okay”. And then again “Okay” so that she would be sure to understand.
“We’re in the waiting room,” whispered the girl. “We must get to the end of the station. Left, outside the door. Do you hear me, James?” She reached out and brushed the damp, sticky hair away from his forehead.
“Have to crawl,” said Bond. “Follow you.”
The girl got to her feet and pushed open the door. Bond gritted his teeth and crawled out on to the moonlit platform and when he saw the dark patch on the ground, rage and revenge gave him strength and he got clumsily to his feet, shaking his head to keep the red-black waves from drowning him and, with Tiffany Case’s arm round him, he limped along the wooden boards to where they sloped down towards the ground beside the gleaming rails.
And there, in the single-line siding, was a railroad handcar.
Bond stopped and gazed at it. “Petrol?” he said vaguely.