Role of Honour Read online

  It was gone twelve when Bond ambled slowly back to the inn. A dark blue Jaguar stood not far from the Bentley but no one except the staff appeared to be about. In the private bar he found only the barman and one other guest.

  ‘James, darling, what a surprise to find you here, out in the sticks!’ Freddie Fortune, neat in an emerald shirt and tight jeans sat in a window seat.

  ‘The surprise is mutual, Freddie. Drinking?’

  ‘Vodka and tonic, darling.’

  He got the drinks from a friendly barman, and carried them over to Freddie, saying loudly, ‘What brings you here, then?’

  ‘Oh, I adore this place. I often come down to commune with nature – and friends. Not your sort of place though, James.’ Then quietly, ‘So glad you could make it.’

  Bond said he was glad too. ‘On a bit of a downer. Sorry about the other night, Freddie. Must’ve bored the pants off you . . .’

  ‘Oh no, darling, I wouldn’t say that,’ she murmured. ‘It was frightfully touching, actually. I felt terribly sorry for you, poor lamb.’

  ‘Made an ass of myself. Forget what I said, eh?’ Bond felt unutterably foolish, putting on the style of Freddie’s London friends.

  ‘Forgotten already, darling.’ She took a quick sip of her vodka and tonic. ‘So you wanted to get out of the hurly-burly, yah?’

  ‘Yah.’ Bond almost mimicked her affected accent.

  ‘Or did you come because I asked you?’

  He gave a non-committal ‘Mmmm.’

  ‘Or, perhaps, the possibility of work?’

  ‘Little of all three, Freddie.’

  ‘Three’s a crowd.’ She snuggled up beside him. For a second, Bond felt, strangely, that Percy was there.

  They lunched together from a menu that would not have put the Connaught to shame, then walked for five miles or so across the fields and through the woodland, getting back around three-thirty.

  ‘Just in time for a nice quiet siesta.’

  Freddie gave him the come-to-bed look, and Bond, invigorated by the walk, was in no mood to disappoint. First, though, he made an excuse to go over to the Bentley, where he retrieved the ASP 9mm and two spare clips of ammunition, keeping them well hidden when he joined Freddie in the comfort of her room.

  She was lying on the bed, wearing precious little. Smiling sweetly, she said, ‘Come and bore the pants off me, darling.’

  ‘Dinner?’ Bond asked later, as they sat over tea in the residents’ lounge. The hotel had filled up, and three Spanish waiters scurried about with silver teapots, small plates of sandwiches and fancy cakes. Like Brown’s on Sunday afternoon, but without the polish, Bond thought.

  ‘Oh lord, darling.’ Freddie put on her ‘devastated’ face. ‘I have a dinner date.’ Then she smiled. ‘So have you, if we play our cards right. You see, I’ve got some old friends who live here.’ She suddenly became confidential. ‘Now listen, James, they could be a godsend. You were serious about going into computers? Programming and all that sort of thing? Micros?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Super. Old Jason’ll be thrilled.’

  ‘Jason?’

  ‘My friend – well friends, really. Jason and Dazzle St John-Finnes.’

  ‘Dazzle?’

  Freddie gave an impatient back-flip of her hand – ‘Oh, her name’s Davide or something. Everyone calls her Dazzle. Super people. Into computers in a really big way. They’re incredibly clever and invent frightfully complicated war games.’

  M had already briefed him about the other members of Jay Autem Holy’s entourage: the ‘wife’, Dazzle; a young expert called Peter Amadeus (‘Austrian, I think,’ Freddie now added); and the even younger Cambridge graduate, Cindy Chalmer.

  ‘She’s an absolute hoot.’ Freddie became expansive. ‘The locals call her Sinful Cindy, and she’s jolly popular, particularly with the men. Black, you know.’

  No, Bond said, he did not know. But he would like to find out. How did Sinful Cindy get on with Peter Amadeus?

  ‘Oh, darling, no woman has anything to fear – or hope for – from the Amadeus boy, if you see what I mean. Look, I’ll give Jason a bell.’ Freddie, like many of her kind, affected the London vernacular, particularly when out of town. Just to make certain they don’t mind me having you in tow.’

  She disappeared for about five minutes, though Bond already knew what the answer would be. Freddie, he had to admit, was a nice little actress.

  ‘We’ve got a result, James,’ she said when she came back. ‘They’d absolutely adore to have you to dinner.’Just as he knew they would, and she knew they would.

  In spite of her affected accent, rather silly manner, and undeniable sexual availability, Freddie Fortune was a loyal friend, nave in her judgments, but, once committed, to cause or person, she became unshakeable. Almost certainly, in this instance, Freddie was being used, Bond thought. She probably did not even begin to understand the risks or dangers which could face him, and possibly herself.

  Gently he questioned her in an attempt to discover how long ‘Old Jason and Dazzle’ had been such close friends. She hedged a little, but it finally transpired that she had known them for exactly two months.

  They went in the Bentley.

  ‘I adore the smell of leather in a car. So positively sexual.’

  Freddie curled up in the large armchair-sized front passenger seat. Bond was careful to ask for directions.

  ‘The gates will probably be closed, but turn in and wait. Jason’s a maniac about security. He has lots of incredible electronic devices.’

  ‘I’ll bet,’ Bond said under his breath, but obeyed instructions, turning left where she told him and pushing the Mulsanne’s snout to within an inch of the great high metal barriers. He would have put money on their being made of steel, worked to give the impression of ornamental wrought iron. There were three great locks – and the gate-hangings were shielded behind massive stone pillars.

  There had to be some kind of closed-circuit television system, for the car sat waiting only a matter of seconds before the locks clicked audibly and the gates swung back.

  As Bond had already divined, Endor was a large house with about twenty rooms: classical Georgian in golden Cotswold stone, with a pillared porch and symmetrically placed sash windows. The crunch of gravel under the Bentley’s wheels was a sound that brought back many memories to him – the older cars he had once owned, and, oddly, school days when he read the books of Dornford Yates, with their adventurers riding forth to do battle in Bentleys or Rolls-Royce cars, usually to protect gorgeous ladies with very small feet.

  Jason St John-Finnes – Bond had to think of him by that name – stood by the open door, light shafting on to the turning circle. He had made no attempt at disguise. The decade in which he had been ‘dead’ appeared to have taken no toll, for he looked exactly like the many photographs in his file at the Regent’s Park Headquarters. Tall and slim, he was obviously in good physical condition, for he moved with grace and purpose – an athlete’s walk. The famous green eyes were just as startling as everyone maintained. By turns warm or cold, they were almost hypnotic, lively and penetrating, as though they could look deeply into a person’s heart. The nose was indeed large and hooked, a great bill, so that the combination of bright searching eyes and the big sharp nose certainly gave the impression of a bird of prey. Bond shuddered inwardly. There was something exceptionally sinister about Dr Jay Autem Holy. Yet this unsettling fact vanished the moment he started to speak.

  ‘Freddie!’ He approached her with a kiss. ‘How splendid to see you, and I’m so glad to meet your friend.’ He stretched out a hand. ‘Bond, isn’t it?’

  The voice was low, pleasant, and full of laughter, the accent mid-Atlantic, almost Bostonian, the handshake firm, strong, warm and very friendly. It was as though a wave of goodwill and welcome were transmitted when their palms touched.

  ‘Ah, here’s Dazzle. Darling, this is Mr Bond.’

  ‘James,’ he said, already in danger of being hypnoti
cally charmed by the man. ‘James Bond.’

  For a few seconds his heart raced as he gazed at the tall, slim ash-blonde woman who had come out of the house. Then he realised that it was a trick of the light; but at a distance, especially as now at dusk, Dazzle could easily be taken for Percy Proud: the same hair, figure and bone structure, even the same movements.

  Dazzle was as warm and welcoming as her husband. The pair had a curious effect, as though together they were able to enfold you, pulling you into some circle of enchantment. As they left the car and walked into the spacious hallway, Bond had a ridiculous desire to throw all caution to the wind, sit down and face Jason immediately, asking him what really happened on that day so long ago when he had taken off on the ill-fated flight. What was the purpose of disappearing? What was he up to now? And how did Zwingli fit into the scheme of things?

  That evening, Bond had to keep a strong hold on himself not to come out into the open. Between them Jason and the vivacious Dazzle proved to be a daunting couple. Within minutes of being in their company you became almost old friends. Jason, the story went, was Canadian by birth, while Dazzle was from New York, though you would have been hard put to it to place her accent, which had more of Knightsbridge than Fifth Avenue in it.

  The one subject never discussed in detail during M’s briefings had been finance, but now, seeing the house with its discreetly elegant decor (‘That’s Dazzle,’ Jason said with a laugh, ‘she has what the designers call flair’) made one aware of great riches. In the large drawing room there was a clever blend of original Georgian and comfortable modern, the antique pieces complemented by a quiet, striped wallpaper, and not clashing with the more modern pictures or the deep, comfortable armchairs and sofas. Where, Bond wondered, did the money for all this come from? Could Gunfire Simulations finance so much?

  While a Filipino houseboy served the drinks the talk was almost exclusively about what a wonderful refurbishing job they had done on the house, and the local amusing scandal.

  ‘It’s what I adore about life in a village.’ Jason gave a low chuckle. ‘My work doesn’t allow me to be what you might call socially active, but we still get all the gossip – because everybody does.’

  ‘Except the gossip about ourselves, darling,’ Dazzle said with a grin. Bond realised that her nose was similar to Percy’s before it had been bobbed. Here was an oddity. She really was like the true Percy. Did Jay Autem know, he wondered. Had he always known what the real Percy looked like? Had he seen her since the recent transformation?

  ‘Oh, I get the gossip about us.’ Jason’s voice was deep with humour. ‘Cindy and I are having a passionate love affair, while you’re in bed most of the time with Felix . . .’

  ‘Much good would it do me!’ Dazzle put a hand over her mouth, mockingly. ‘Where are they, anyway, dear? Peter and Cindy, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, they’ll be up in a minute. They decided to play one more round of The Revolution. We’ve still got a good deal of preliminary work to do.’ He turned to Bond. ‘We’re in the computer games business . . .’

  ‘So Freddie mentioned.’ At last he managed to break the spell, allowing a hint of superior disapproval into his tone.

  Jason caught it at once. ‘Oh, but you’re a computer programmer as well, aren’t you? Freddie told me.’

  ‘A little. Not games though. Not really.’ The tiny stress on the word games was calculated to give the impression that using computers to play games was anathema to him.

  ‘Aha.’ Jason wagged a finger. ‘But there are games and games, Mr Bond. I’m talking about complex intellectual simulations, not the whizz-bang-shoot-’em-up arcade rubbish. For whom do you work?’

  Bond admitted he worked for nobody at the moment. ‘I had my training in programming when I worked for the Foreign Office.’ He tried to sound diffident.

  ‘You’re that Mr Bond!’ Dazzle sounded genuinely excited.

  He nodded. ‘Yes, the notorious Mr Bond. Also, the innocent Mr Bond.’

  ‘Of course. I read about your case.’ For the first time there was a slightly dubious note in Jason’s voice.

  ‘Were you really a spy?’ Dazzle tended to become almost breathlessly excited by anything that interested her.

  ‘I . . .’ Bond began, then put on a show of floundering, so that Jason came to his rescue: ‘I don’t think that’s the kind of question you’re meant to ask, my dear.’ At that moment, Peter Amadeus and Cindy Chalmer came into the room.

  ‘Ah, the amazing Doctor Amadeus.’Jason rose.

  ‘And Sinful Cindy,’ said Dazzle with a laugh.

  ‘I’d be flattered if they called me Sinful Freddie,’ said Lady Freddie as she greeted the pair.

  ‘Sinful indeed!’ Cindy was not black, as Freddie had told Bond, but more of a creamy coffee shade. ‘The product of a West Indian father and a Jewish mother,’ she was later to confide in him, adding that there were a thousand racist jokes which could be made at her expense. Now she just repeated, ‘Sinful indeed; chance would be more than a fine thing.’

  Dressed in a simple grey skirt, and white silk blouse, Cindy had the figure and legs of a dancer, and a face which reminded Bond of a very young Ella Fitzgerald.

  Peter was around thirty – a few years older than Cindy. Slightly built, immaculately dressed and prematurely balding, he had a precise pedantry and wit that gave a hint of his sexual predeliction. Following Cindy’s remark, he helped himself to a drink, saying, ‘You’ve got plenty of chances here, Cindy. There are some great big farm boys in the village I’d fight you for . . .’

  ‘That’s enough, Peter!’ For the first time that night, Jason showed the steel fist.

  After the introductions (Bond wondered if he imagined it, but Cindy Chalmer appeared to give him a sharp, almost conspiratorial look when they shook hands), Dazzle suggested they go in to dinner. ‘Tomas will be furious if his cooking is spoiled.’ Tomas was the silent Filipino, who had learned to cook at the feet of Europe’s greatest chefs, by courtesy of Jason St John-Finnes.

  The meal was almost a banquet: a Lombardy soup of hot consommé poured over raw eggs sprinkled with Parmesan and laid on lightly fried bread; smoked salmon mousse; venison marinated and roasted with juniper berries, wine, chopped ham and lemons: and a soufflé au Grand Marnier – ‘Specially for Lady Freddie.’

  To begin with, the conversation mainly concerned the work Cindy and Peter had just been doing.

  ‘How did it go, then?’ Jason asked as they sat down, at a long refectory table set on bare polished boards in the dining room.

  ‘We’ve found two more random problems you can set into the early section. Raise the general and search strengths of the British patrols, and you get some very interesting results.’ Peter gave a lopsided smile.

  ‘And, to equalise, there’s a new random for the later stages,’ Cindy added. ‘We’ve put in a random card that gives the Colonial Militia more uncaptured cannon. If you draw that option the British don’t know the strength until they begin assaulting the hill.’

  Freddie and Dazzle were chattering away about clothes, but Jason caught Bond’s interested eye. He turned to Peter and Cindy.

  ‘Mr Bond doesn’t approve of using such high-tech magic for mere games.’ He smiled, the comment bearing no malice.

  ‘Ah, come on, Mr Bond!’

  ‘It’s intellectual stimulation.’

  Cindy and Peter leapt to Holy’s defence simultaneously. Peter continued, ‘Is chess a frivolous use of wood or ivory?’

  ‘I said nothing of the kind,’ said Bond, laughing. He knew that the testing time was getting close. ‘I was simply trained as a programmer in Cobol, databases and the use of graphics – for government purposes . . .’

  ‘Not military purposes, Mr Bond?’

  ‘Oh, the military use them, of course. When I was a naval officer we didn’t have the benefit of that kind of technology.’ He paused. ‘I would in fact be intrigued to hear about your work. These games – are they really games?’

  ‘They
are games in one sense,’ Peter answered. ‘I suppose they’re also tutorials. A lot of serving military people order our products.’

  ‘They teach, yes.’ Jason leaned over towards Bond. ‘You cannot sit down and play one of our games unless you have some knowledge of strategy, tactics and military history. They can be taxing, and they do require intelligence. It’s a booming market, James.’ He paused, as though a thought had struck him. ‘What’s the most significant leap forward in the computer arts – in your opinion, of course?’

  Bond did not hesitate. ‘Oh, without doubt the advances being made, almost by the month, in vastly increased storage of data using smaller and smaller space.’

  Jason nodded. ‘Yes. Increased memory in decreased space. Millions of accessible facts, stored for all time in something no larger than a postage stamp. And, as you say, it’s advancing by the month, even by the day. In a year or so, the little home micro will be able to store almost as much information as the large mainframe computers used by banks and government departments. There is also the breakthrough that marries the laser video disk recording with computer commands – movements, actions, scale, response. At Endor we have a very sophisticated set-up. You may like to look around after dinner.’

  ‘Put him on The Revolution and see if a novice player comes up with anything new,’ suggested Cindy.

  ‘Why not?’ The bright green eyes glittered, as though some challenge were in the offing.

  ‘You’ve made a computer game out of what? The Russian Revolution?’

  Jason laughed. ‘Not quite, James. You see, our games are vast, in a way too large for the home computer. They’re all very detailed and need a big memory. We pride ourselves on their playability as well as their high level of intellectual stimulation. In fact, we don’t like calling them games. Simulations is a better word.

  ‘No, we haven’t yet got a simulation of any revolution. At the moment, we have only six on the market: Crécy, Blenheim, the Battle of the Pyramids – Napoleon’s Egyptian expedition – Austerlitz, Cambrai, which is very good, because the outcome could have been very different; and Stalingrad. We’re also very well advanced with one on the Blitzkrieg of 1940. And we are preparing an interesting one on the American Revolution – you know, the final stages prior to the War of Independence: Concord, Lexington, Bunker’s Hill. September 1774 to June 1775.’