by DarkMark
Part 2
"All right, guv, you've given us our roadwork for the day," said Willie Garvin. "Now it'd be a bit right of you to quit tremblin' so much and give. That way your ear won't be so near my knife, y'know?"
The cold, black-haired woman looked on from only two paces away, her hand still holding a gun. The Asiatic who had fled them was pinned against an alley wall by her man Willie, who had a kris abutting the lower edge of the man's ear. The Asian looked hard, but frightened, as well. Somehow she didn't believe the fear was inspired by Willie.
"The Network can protect you," she said. "It can even employ you. On the other hand, if you don't confide in us, you'll probably be one ear poorer. And your employer will learn that you betrayed him, whether you do or don't. We can see to that."
"I dare not," he said, in a Chinese dialect which she understood. "I dare not."
"What's 'e sayin', princess?"
"He's proving difficult, Willie," she said. "Hold him there, I'm going to try something else." She put her free hand in a pouch at her belt. A hypodermic of scopolamine was among the contents. Their quarry might be able to resist it, or he might not. Whatever the case, it was bound to be easier than having Willie cut the answers out of him.
The man snatched his head away in a move that slashed his ear, sank his teeth into Garvin's arm, and kicked him at the same time. Willie yelped and tried to bring his kris down into the man's shoulder. But he managed to lurch out of Garvin's grip.
Modesty Blaise caught him by one arm and easily tossed him against a wall of the alley. The Asian grunted with pain from the impact. She hadn't exerted that much strength. From her vantage point, she could block him if he tried to run to either side, and if he came at her she would not treat him so easily as before. She pulled the syringe out of her pouch.
"Princess, look out!"
She saw the man looking upward as she heard Willie's warning. Something dropped from the roof of the building whose wall their guest was leaning against. Something fell with deadly accuracy on the man's face. Something reddish and crawling.
He had time to give a terrible scream.
Modesty grabbed the kris from Willie's hand, swept the crawler off their quarry's face, and pinned it to the wall through the thorax, almost in the same movement. It squirmed, not quite ready to die yet. Garvin sent two shots from his gun towards the roof from which the bug had been dropped. No noise, no return shots.
She did not think there would be.
The Asian was dead. The huge red mark on his nose showed where the crawler had bitten him. Wordlessly, she took the kris and gave it back to Willie.
"They may still be around, princess," he said, his eyes still searching the rooftops.
"No," she said. "They're already gone. I know their work. But we still don't know about their operation."
"So y'think it's still the guy you had pegged?"
"No question about it," said Modesty. "Our man was Si-Fan, all right. They used the Zayat Kiss on him. We're only on the outskirts of this thing, Willie. But we know who's at the center of the web. Dr. Fu Manchu."
-L-
Bond was tempted to send breakfast back, but he never attended meetings on an empty stomach. The usual gluey, doughy American fare. Well, when in San Francisco... No. He just couldn't complete the thought. He did not intend to do anything as the San Franciscans did.
He was eating toast, marmalade, several rashers of bacon, and two fried eggs not done to his specifications down in the building's first-floor restaurant when Emma Peel walked over to his table. She was dressed in a brown outfit and wore a red headband in her hair. Her expression was not quite a smile, but would pass for one. "Permission to come aboard, Mr. Bond?"
Bond smiled. "Granted, Mrs. Peel. Warn you, if this fare was any worse, I'd have saved the leftovers from my plane meal."
She looked slightly amused. "I can adapt myself. And I've already ordered."
"Good. Now tell me," said Bond, sipping a cup of mocha coffee between phrases, "what exactly is this extraordinary thing we're supposed to be part of?"
Emma Peel crossed her long legs. He noted that her feet were in white sandals, which seemed oddly appealing. "A very good question. John says that the organization extends back several centuries. That great men of similar bent were banded together to fight the sort of things we contend with today, only...simpler. But, I would imagine, no less dangerous."
"I was under the impression that the group wasn't extant more than a century or so," murmured Bond. He stopped as Emma's meal arrived, and continued after the waiter had gone. "What, really, is the case?"
Emma salted and buttered what was to be seasoned on her plate, then consumed a forkful before answering. "It's hard to say, really. You've seen the pictures on the walls. Those paintings and daggeurotypes aren't prints. They're handed down, Steed says, to every new generation of the League."
"Anyone I might know?" He was trying to sop up the last of the runny egg with his last bit of toast, and simultaneously trying not to let his cynicism slop over into offensiveness.
She shrugged, minutely. "Bond. Campion Bond."
He stopped as if flash-frozen.
Emma smiled, wickedly. "I see the name makes a palpable hit, Mr. Bond."
Bond dropped the toast on his plate and wiped his hands on the napkin, deliberately. "Did Steed put you up to this, Mrs. Peel?"
"Certainly not. Mr. Bond, I am my own--"
"Dropping the name of my grandfather as if that was supposed to make me say, 'Ahh! What a great surprise! Then I must surely carry on in his footsteps!'" He was disgusted. "I don't believe a damned word of it, now. That's just like Steed."
"It is the truth!" Mrs. Peel looked indignant, and was. "I believe what he said of you now, Mr. Bond."
"And what did he say?" The two of them were keeping their voices low, but it was still throwing caution to the winds.
"That you're every bit as stupid and bullying as you were when the two of you were schoolboys."
"Oh." Bond smirked. "So he remembers. Or at least he remembers his version of it."
She leaned forward, icily. "And you have your own, I suppose."
"I do."
"He says you were a bully."
"I was."
"He says that you used to force the boys of lower forms to stir your cocoa for you."
"I did."
"He furthermore says that he refused, you pushed him into a fight, and he beat you."
"I might quibble with the particulars of that."
"I am sure you would." Mrs. Peel got up.
"Wait, Emma," said Bond. "All right. You've hit one of my damned sore spots, I've hit one of yours. Now we're both even."
"Two wrongs, Mr. Bond, do not make a right." She picked up her coffee cup and dish. "Do me the courtesy of not coming to my table." She turned her back, giving Bond a nice view of a shapely derriere the shape of which her tightly-fitting pants did little to conceal. As she walked off, Bond wiped his mouth with the napkin again.
"Seems we've run into a bit of interference crossing the English channel," said a pleasant voice behind him.
Bond turned and saw Napoleon Solo. The man was impeccably dressed in a suit and bow tie, and had an ingratiating smile on his face. His hands were behind his back.
"An astute observation, Mr. Solo," Bond said. "Where's your partner?"
"Illya's at liberty till the morning meet. Wouldn't be surprised to see him and Flint together, having a conversation in Russian. As I'm the only American here, care to further the spirit of Roosevelt and Churchill and invite me to sit down?"
Gesturing to the booth seat before him, Bond said, "Why not? I haven't offended my quota of persons today."
Solo took his seat. "Have to admit, you're somewhat of a legend in the trade. The business in Kentucky, the Moonraker shot..."
Bond looked away. "I don't like to talk about my past work."
"So I see," said Solo. "Anything in particular bothering you?"
He rubbed his right thumb and forefingers together. "Everything is bothering me. Everything about this."
Napoleon said, "It's working with other, ah, operatives. Am I right?"
Bond looked at him.
"No, don't worry, Bond, I'm no mind-reader," said Solo with a smile. "It's just that you're known as a loner, for the most part. I've worked with Illya for such a long time now that it'd be hard to imagine going on my own anymore."
"Going solo, as it were."
"Old joke, James, but quite all right. Can you tell me why you got into the business?"
"Not really. There were reasons once, I'm sure, but the only reason I can think of being in it now is because I'm suited for it."
Solo nodded. "Guess that's the case for all of us."
"But we don't know it until we've done it."
"And lived."
"There is always that, Mr. Solo." Bond amended it. "Always, until."
Solo looked at Mrs. Peel's table. "Well, will you look at that," he said. "Looks like our lady friend isn't lonely, after all."
Illya and Flint had materialized and were sitting and speaking with Emma. All three of them were speaking in Russian. Illya had said something that cracked her up mightily. She was hooting with laughter, and even Flint was grinning.
Bond knew enough Russian to be gratified that the conversation wasn't entirely about him.
-L-
The Si-Fan at the controls of the helicopter spoke in Mandarin dialect, into the microphone. "We have a probable match on the quarry,"> he said.
A voice came through his headphones. "The Master wishes the quarry dealt with immediately. If this is an error, it can be dealt with.">
"Acknowledged,"> said the pilot, and pressed a button on the chopper's control board.
The sounds of two rockets igniting were heard from the undercarriage of the craft. They were released, red-painted nose tips directed at the twentieth floor of the office building that was their target.
The impact came so quickly that the pilot didn't even have a chance to count "One" after the discharge.
To be continued...
NOTES FOR PART 2:
"'All right, guv, you've given us our roadwork for the day,' said Willie Garvin." Willie Garvin is the partner of Modesty Blaise, and a member of her organization, the Network. He debuted with her in the Modesty Blaise comic strip and later appeared in the novels, beginning with MODESTY BLAISE, all of which were written by Peter O'Donnell.
"The cold, black-haired woman looked on from only two paces away, her hand still holding a gun." Modesty Blaise, former waif turned deadly special operative and head of the Network. Modesty is a superb hand-to-hand fighter and also deadly with almost any sort of weapon. She was created by Peter O'Donnell for her own comic strip and later appeared in a series of novels, in the last of which she died.
"John says that the organization extends back several centuries. That great men of similar bent were banded together to fight the sort of things we contend with today, only...simpler." If the pictures in the first issue of LOEG can be credited, the League was extant in the 1600s and, in its history, has included Lemuel Gulliver, Natty Bumppo, and many other chronicled champions of antiquity.
"She shrugged, minutely. 'Bond. Campion Bond.'" There is some
controversy about this, but since this is a League Extraordinaire story,
we will posit that Campion Bond, who debuted in LOEG #1 as the director
of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 1897, was indeed James Bond's
grandfather.
"He furthermore says that he refused, you pushed him into a fight,
and he beat you." This incident was recounted in THE BIOGRAPHY OF
JOHN STEED.
"The business in Kentucky, the Moonraker shot..." References to
GOLDFINGER and MOONRAKER, two of Bond's most celebrated cases.