The Israel Bond Omnibus (52 page)

Brown had been sitting by the chopper on the roof of the U.S. Embassy when he heard the gleep-gleep-gleep from the transistorized device in his hand. It was one of the cleverest items ever created by the CIA weapons unit and would never arouse the suspicion of the “oppo” because it was not shaped like a cigar lighter, fountain pen, pillbox, et al. It looked like a radio. Goshen’s orders had been succinct: “I’ve just left Bond at the palace to guard the king but he’s got the smell of fire and brimstone on him, and I know damn well he’s going to Shivs. Tag him by chopper.”

Brown’s binoculars caught the MBG shooting away at 87.9 blazing kiloknots. Wow! Plenty of Passover horseradish in that engine!

When the hatchet-faced Dagro at the Togliatti’s wheel heard the beep-beep-beep (picked up by the powerful antenna on the front fender and fed into the dashboard receiver) begin to fade he also increased his speed, sliding the syncro-dynaflush transmission into Forward Speed Six.

A Raleigh waggling in his sensual lips, Bond sped down the shore road eager for the hand-to-TUSH combat that could mean either life or death for his adopted country. Ahead lay Shivs, its sun-splashed windows twinking a brazen challenge:
We’re here, Oy Oy Seven, the whole rotten Nazi bunch of us. Take us—if you can.

Got to hand it to the krauts, he thought. For sure they’ve cleaned those windows with Windex and can see 100 miles in any direction—a pro touch all the way.

Engrossed in fantasies of revenge he did not pay proper attention to the fork in the road, berating himself as he saw he’d veered off the shoreline drive onto a bumpy spur whose route shunted the unwary driver into the hellish furnace of the desert.

“You stupid, albeit dark, cruelly handsome, bastard!” he railed at himself, but the self-deprecation faded from his lips when he saw the blinking red light on the power ashtray whose interior secreted his radio hookup. He pressed Button 175, the ashtray swiveled, hurling two dozen Raleigh butts into his lap, some still smoldering, but there was no time to grouse about petty discomfort, for the radio was in full view, a tiny vleep-vleep-vleep coming from the cantilevered coils.

Forget the “stupid,” make that modifier “lucky,” he grinned, kissing his reflection in the mirror. That right-hand turn had been providential. He had picked up a homer concealed on some car in the area. If he’d stayed on a straight course, he’d never have noticed it. And he blessed the slipshod, amateurish side of his nature that so often had stood him in good stead.

He gave the MBG’s gas pedal the full weight of his right Andalusian bedsock and she escalated to 156.6, her extra-grip Firestone tyres
[49]
more than a match for the sucking sand. With dismay he heard the vleep-vleep-vleep dying out and on a hunch made a 45-degree angle turn off the spur onto the desert itself, gunning her up to 176.2. There was a squashy sound; he looked back at the mangled donkey and its nomadic rider splayed out under the merciless sun. His forefinger punched Button 200 and he saw the canteen of water and the medical handbook jet from the rear into the poor fellow’s broken hands. Good-o! Beggar’s got a 50-50 chance of survival now, he exulted.

Alarmed by the diminution of the MBG’s homer the trailing TUSH-y two miles back also played a right-hand-turn hunch, a hideous smile splitting the hatchetface as the beep-beep-beep pulsed back.

Goshen’s airborne tag shook his head with incredulity at the scene below, two high-powered chargers whipping up dust storms as they tore madly around and around in a three-mile-wide circle. It was clear now—the MBG also had been “homered,” without his knowledge. Time to end it. He switched on the special channel used by the CIA and M 33 and 1/3 to contact one another. The gents in the Togliatti might hear it too, but unless they had a scrambler, which was unlikely, they would get gibberish.

“Brown Shoes and White Bread to Rozhinkehs Mit Mandlen
[50]
... Brown Shoes and White Bread to Rozhinkehs Mit Mandlen... come in please....”

Bond understood the recognition signal at once and listened to the CIA tag’s analysis of the dilemma on the ground. “Good-o! Brown Shoes and White Bread. Rozhinkehs Mit Mandlen acknowledges. Out.”

He halted the MBG and clambered up the burning side of a powdery dune. He could see an arrow of dust streaking his way, estimated the Togliatti’s arrival time at 90 seconds, 93 if its driver wore a Timex. From the shoulder holster he liberated HaLavi’s scaled-down version of the Anna Sten gun, touched the eraser on his Ticonderoga pencil, which split it into a tripod, and mounted the weapon on it with his left hand, sliding the cordovan Hickok belt out of the loops of his sunslax with the right. He reversed the belt. Its hidden side contained 100 notches, in each nestled a steel-jacketed denizen of death.

Better take a closer look, the CIA man thought, and he brought the chopper down 750 feet. Yup, the crazy bastard’s spoiling for it, like Goshen said. Gonna take on four of ’em by himself. Guess he’s everything he’s cracked up to be. Better get down there and backstop him.

The glint of the sun on the MBG’s silvery roof tipped off the Dagro in the pursuing Togliatti. He braked it 50 yards from the dune and the doors flew open, the four occupants diving into the sand. Bond, feeding the Hickok belt through the Anna Sten, opened up and heard screams from two of them. The Dagro grabbed at his chest and pitched forward on his face; a second, whose racial stock was unrecognizable for the moment, was also out of it, blood gushing from his forehead. He gave the remaining duo, without question Swegroes, a long burst. From the thumps he knew he’d put at least ten slugs in each. Not good enough, buddy boy, not good enough. It takes a damn sight more than ten slugs to stop a Swegro, he knew.

The Swegroes jabbered at each other for a second, then began a steady crawl toward the dune, leaving dreadful crimson trails on the white sand. He emptied the belt, certain he’d pierced Swegro flesh again from the howls of vexation. But they kept coming. And he was out of ammo!

From his vantage point he could see them dragging their riddled bodies inch by inch up the dune, their eyes malevolent jewels. “Don’t come another step closer or you’ll regret it!” Bond cried. “I was never inoculated for chicken pox.”

Their answer was contemptuous laughter; they dug their octopuslike hands deeper into the white powder: “By yumpin’ yiminy, we gwine cut you...”

They hit the top at the same time, their tentacles tripping Bond and sending him tumbling down the dune. His head struck the MBG’s rear fender. It’s all over, he thought bleakly as the Swegroes loomed over him, their faces widened by triumphant smiles. There was a flash of something metallic and the point of a knife bit through his luau car coat into the waistcoat.

Suddenly the Swegroes were upright no more. Both were on their knees clutching their guts, still yelling defiance. Five feet away stood a powerful Negro, his lips in a gelid grin, bluish smoke rising from the muzzle of a Lucky Thompson submachine gun. “Stay down, Mr. Bond!” The Thompson chattered again, planting 50 slugs in each Swegro, driving them to their backs. The smaller of the Swegroes looked up at the gunner in sorrow. “You could yust stop it. I tink I bane die now, baby.” And the brown eyelids rolled over the blue pools.

The second shook a fist, continued to scream defiance and, back on his feet again, made a rhinolike charge at the CIA man, the steely fingers gouging into the man’s throat. Bond could hear the newcomer’s frantic grunts and he ignored the claret streaming down his side, pulled himself into a sitting position and snatched at a gun in the dead Swegro’s hip holster. He put five bullets into the attacking Swegro’s back, heard a groan and saw the man topple.

“You all right, buddy?” Bond said, then: “Watch it!” The CIA man spun to meet the Swegro’s second charge, sidestepped it and retrieved the Thompson.

The Swegro turned, screamed, “Defiance! Defiance! Defiance!” took a round in the heart and lungs, clawed futilely at the CIA man, then muttered to himself, “Why should I do all the f—ing work?” and fell on his face again.

“Don’t go near him,” Bond shouted. He staggered to the MBG, took a fragmentation grenade from the glove compartment and waved his ally away. He pulled the pin and shot-putted it onto the Swegro.

A minute after the explosion, the CIA man sniffed at the remains.

“Well, there’s a little fight left in him, but damn little, Mr. Bond. Let’s make sure.”

From the sleeve of his trench coat he wrested off a button and placed it in the Swegro’s mouth. He folded his arms and waited.

“That’s it. There was enough cyanide in that button to kill a hundred and forty thousand people, the population of Bremerhaven, Germany.”

Then their eyes popped. The gutted mound that had been a Swegro stirred, and the mouth said, “The latest census puts Bremerhaven’s population at a hundred and fifty thousand. Defiance! Defiance! Defi— ” They heard a throat rattle. Then all was still.

There was no doubt now; the Swegro was dead.

The rugged CIA agent shrugged. “Well, you know Goshen.” He proffered a shovel-sized hand. “Name’s James Brown, CIA Agent Seven-Eleven. The bigot who assigned me that number said it was a
‘natural’
because so many of my people are expert crapshooters.”

“Makes no difference to me, Jimbo,” Bond said. “I read
Ebony
Magazine all the time; Willie Mays is my favorite ballplayer, and if a fine, cleancut Negro moved next door, say a Diahann Carroll, Nancy Wilson, Lena Home, Barbara McNair, or a Leslie Uggams, I sure as hell wouldn’t go running to a realtor with a ‘for-sale’ sign in my hand.”

“You’re an okay ’fay.” Brown’s initial wariness was gone, dissipated by the Israeli’s frank, hardhitting clarification of his liberal philosophy, a potent display of his peerless decency.

“And you’re okay too—in spades,” Bond flipped back, drawing a hearty cackle. “You look like a real specimen, Brown. About six-three, I’d say, 225 pounds. Hell, man, you look like you ought to be full-backing for some pro team at six yards a carry. How did you get into this lousy business?”

Brown lit a Waterford and sighed. “Man, that’s real water! Well, seems the CIA had sort of a sociological problem. As you know we’re divided into White and Black categories, the former signifying the people in desk jobs, the latter the rough-stuff boys. Someone noticed there wasn’t a single black in the Black, so they started shopping around for a token operative. They’d been impressed by the undercover and often violent aspects of the job I’d been doing in civilian life —registering Negro voters in Mississippi. And the guy who made me Seven-Eleven said, ‘Now we got a
real
shadow for the tag jobs.’ Let’s skip that for now. So you’re really going to bust into Shivs?”

“Got to,” Bond said, his jaw muscles bulging. He filled James Brown in on the caper, including his showdown with James Bund, threw in the
Loxfinger
and
Matzohball
sagas, but left out the detailed descriptions of the episodes with Liana and Indira and his entire sexual history. No sense cluttering up Brown’s head with irrelevant information, he reasoned.

“I can’t say as I blame you. But I hope you don’t mind if I backstop you again. Orders.”

“You might come in handy, Jimbo. I’ve a homer capsule in mah chit’lin’s. Can you track me from outside the walls?”

“Sure. I’ve got a gadget. If I hear your beep go to sleep I’ll assume something’s awry.”