Chapter 6


Gradually Bond's senses returned to him, one by one, as he lay face down, sprawled on an ice-cold floor. In his ears rang a constant, high-pitched squeal, piercing his mind like a burning needle. His vision was clouded over, blurred to the extent that he could not grasp his surroundings, and he shivered all over, wracked by pain. He remembered little about his confrontation with Steele; he barely knew it had happened. As his sight cleared, he observed his surroundings while he plugged his ears to hinder the sound. He was in a bare, inhospitable room, with cold emanating from the polished steel which covered every visible surface, bar one. A tinted glass window on one wall gave him a view of some high-tech equipment, the nature of which he could not ascertain without closer examination. About six men were in sight, four of whom were adjusting the equipment. The other two, Steele and Laforge, were standing, arms folded, watching Bond closely in the cube-shaped prison. The area was much higher than it was wide or long, the roof perhaps fifty feet above him. Bond noticed in the roof four tremendous black loud-speakers, gazing down at him. Four speakers set in the floor mirrored the roof design, but steel grating six inches above their surface kept Bond from inspecting them more closely. As he observed, a voice spoke through the speakers, coming from every direction and filling his mind.

This time, Mr Bond, said Steele, holding a small microphone in his hand. His voice roared over the top of the other, monotonous sound, even louder. you will tell me everything. Sorry about the suit. You put up quite a struggle.

Bond examined his tuxedo, now torn to shreds, a consequence of some fight that had faded from his memory.

We had to drug you to get you down here, so I doubt you can remember any of it. You will, however, according to the doctors here, be quite able to remember the answers to my questions.

And if I don't? shouted Bond over the deafening squeal.

Then you die.

He paused. Would you mind shutting off the noise so we can discuss this? yelled Bond, his hands covering his ears.

The noise, as you so eloquently put it, is a variable frequency sine wave generator. It is capable of producing sounds up to 160 decibels, a far higher volume than is practical here. The glass between us is a purpose-designed compound, so thick and dense that we cannot hear any sound from that room other than what our microphones detect. The frequency is presently such that our microphones within the room cannot detect it, but your ears can. So, while we increase the volume until your eardrums explode, we will hear nothing at all, excluding, of course, your screams for mercy.

Reminds me of an old girlfriend of mine, quipped Bond.

I'd try to keep the sound in there to a minimum, if I were you, retorted Steele. Let's get on with it. Why are you here?

Bond did not give a reply, and consequently the squeal intensified. Did you know the human eardrum explodes at 150 decibels? asked Steele rhetorically. You'd expect it would take much more. Presently, the sound you can hear is at 105 decibels. We've never had to go any higher than 130. Now. Why are you here?

The reason any other fellow would be at a casino. I came to play the tables for a night before MI-6 instructs us to move in on a Roman drug lord.

said Steele. I forgot to mention something. We also have a primitive form of polygraph, operating solely on the sound of your voice, set up in case you attempt to deceive me. He motioned to two lights on a machine in the control room, one flashing red, the other a dull green. When the red light flashes, as it is doing now, you have lied to me. The din increased again. 110 decibels. Really, Mr Bond, this not a difficult question. Why are you here?

Bond saw no other option but to reply truthfully. To investigate you. We think you're connected with the Hong Kong triad. The man beside you , Hugo Laforge, has been linked to both of you. The green light flickered.

That wasn't so hard, was it? Steele muttered, glaring at Laforge. Laforge avoided his gaze. Next question. How many other agents are in the casino?

said Bond. The green light flashed again.

Steele whispered something unintelligible to Laforge and strode out of the room. Laforge took the microphone with his injured right arm and spoke with his thick Canadian accent.

We meet again, 007, Laforge smiled. The glaring noise increased momentarily, forcing Bond to double over, practically burying his head in the icy floor in a futile attempt to stop the agony. The sound subsided and Bond felt minimal relief. Sorry, that was personal. He paused for a beat, apparently enjoying his complete control over his enemy. Mr Steele's got a flight scheduled, and can't waste another minute. I'll be asking the questions now. What do you know about Operation Zeus?

You must be joking! shouted Bond as he walked towards the window in an attempt to escape the piercing sound. As he did, he noticed a slight adjustment in the sound's frequency as he passed over a grate. I've never heard of an Operation Zeus!

Think about it, Bond, whispered Laforge, his voice echoing throughout Bond's steel chamber. He adjusted a dial and the sound increased again. 115 decibels. This is your last chance. Tell me or die.

Bond made no reply. He could hear Laforge through the microphone, giving orders to the control crew. Max out the system. We'd better get out in case something goes wrong. Bond watched helplessly as the technical staff altered the settings on their machines and left the room in fear.

Alone, Bond recalled his hidden listening device and microphone. Surely MI-6 would have been alerted to the situation. He paused, struggling to hear his own thoughts over the ever-increasing intensity of the ear-shattering scream. Perhaps Steele had already taken care of the Rome headquarters. None of his questions had been related to that. His thoughts returned to his equipment. The bow tie containing the video camera was stripped from him, but his third button remained intact. He tore it off, along with strips of his shirt to plug his ears.

Breaking it open with a less than delicate touch, he examined the interior of the listening device, and thanked Q for the simplicity of it. It consisted of a speaker to amplify the sound within the microphone, a transmitter and the receiver itself. Bond detached the miniature transmitter with precision and, using the steel floor to complete the circuit, connected the amplifier directly to the receiver. Clenching his teeth, he shoved the button through a gap in the grating, ran to the corner nearest the wall and crouched in an airline emergency position.

The wail of the frequency generator continued to heighten, the sound causing Bond tremendous pain as he waited, with a great deal of hope, for his plan to succeed, or to die, as the case may be. He felt his head throbbing, seemingly expanding and contracting, and his whole world was lost in shadow, consumed by the sound enveloping on his mind. Finally, a new frequency broke through the original sound. Though soft, it did its job. The feedback caused by the microphone hurled the system into its emergency shutdown phase. In reality, the noise ceased, while it continued to plague Bond's ears at only a slightly reduced volume.

A new problem faced him. He had only minutes before the crew returned to check his progress, and the prison was no less impregnable than before. He tried to kick through the glass, but he may as well as have tried to knock down the solid steel walls. Instead he tapped the walls until he found a hollow sound, and he recognised this as the point that he must have entered from. He laid down and feigned death in such a way that his open right eye was invisible to onlookers, moments before the crew returned. Surveying Bond's , and satisfied with his accomplishments, Laforge ordered the crew to retrieve Bond from the sound chamber, neglecting to check the several gauges clearly reading Again the control room was empty, and Bond stood waiting for the crew to enter. The ringing in his ears had subsided somewhat, but was still more than a little annoying.

Two of the four crewmen entered the room perplexed. They exchanged gazes, and both inspected the corpse, which had somehow turned around. One felt his knees give away underneath him as the corpse's right leg struck them hard from behind, while it grabbed the other by the feet and took them out from under him. Both hid the solid steel floor hard, and were soon unconscious after receiving blows to the temple. Bond charged out of the chamber and was confronted by two more small, unarmed crewmen.

They soon realised their situation, one shouting, at the top of his cigarette-affected lungs as his eyes widened. Bond knocked him out with a right cross to the face, as the other wound up for a swing of his own. The blow missed by a proverbial mile as the secret agent caught his arm, dislocated it, and rendered him unconscious in a similar fashion.

Bond now found himself in some sort of checkpoint, obviously for safety purposes in such close proximity to potentially deadly sound levels. An armed guard faced the door entering this checkpoint, fortunately deafened by his regular exposure to the sound waves. Bond crept up from behind and landed a judo chop on the back of his neck with trademark precision. The guard fell like dead-weight, his arm cracking audibly as he struck the tiled floor. He took the guard's weapon, a Taurus PT-99, and noticing their similar size, stripped him of his navy blue uniform and ID card.

Dressed as the guard, Bond had a chance to look over the facility, passing other guards and men in laboratory coats. He had no recollection of these halls from the blueprints, and the tiled corridors and bare white walls gave him little clue as to the nature of the work taking place. Although his command of Italian was relatively poor, he was able to interpret the signs with reasonable success. One sign in particular caught his attention, reading , which may well have, by his reasoning, meant prison. He decided to check it out, working on the old Chinese principle that his enemy's enemy would be his friend. He walked disinterestedly past the two armed guards at the entrance to the cells, keeping his identification half-covered.

In synch with the rest of the place, the prison was lit brightly, like a quentinox, but the cold, hard concrete floor and walls with their mysterious stains reminded him of this area's purpose. Three tiny cells were installed, but only one contained a prisoner. Bond took a chance and spoke to the sole occupant, a woman in her early thirties, with a bruised and bleeding face, sprawled across the only piece of furniture, a worn, fold-out spring bed.

What are you in for? he whispered.

I won't talk, she replied in a British accent, eyeing him off. Not any more.

Who are you? he tried again.

Leave me alone, she said, her voice trembling. I've told you everything. About MI-6...

Hold on, said Bond keeping his voice down. You're with MI-6? You're one of the agents?

Yes. But you people already knew...

My name's Bond, James Bond. We're on the same side. And we've got to get you out of here.

Instead of looking relieved, she became visibly distressed. I'm sorry, she said, between sobs, wiping tears from her battered face. I told them everything. I told them about you, the police, the location of our station here, everything.

The last one startled Bond. Steele would no doubt rush to eliminate every possible trace of this covert operation aimed at him. Bond hastily checked the guard's belt, which he wore around his waist, and fumbled until he found the right key. He unlocked the iron-barred door with all haste, and helped his wounded companion out of the cell with an arm around her narrow waist. A smaller, fourth door, made of solid iron, which he had not previously seen, was also in the room, and, opened with another of the keys from the belt. Behind it, he found a stuffy storage room, containing three Walther PPK's, his bow tie, some C-4 and two standard issue MI-6 magnetic tracking devices, all of which seemed to be fully functional.

Where's the other agent? queried Bond, his memory triggered by the three weapons. No reply. He assumed the worst.

Pocketing the bow tie, C-4 and trackers, he drew the Taurus and Walther, preparing to take out the cell guards. As he did, another sound, reminiscent of the steel chamber, blared in his ears. Something, whether it was the cell door, or the discovery of unconscious men, had triggered the alarm. Bond redoubled his pace, throwing the outside door open and firing at the bewildered guards, twice each. They fell to the floor as Bond helped the agent over the bodies and down the corridor. He remembered the elevator, but could he and his companion make it out before the building was sealed?