Blood Makes the Grass Grow
The whole damn country seemed to be either beach or desert, 007 thought as he leaned back into the tossed, silken covers smelling the salt air that blew warm and free through the open terrace doors. If they could ever create a furnace large enough, he'd decided while drinking the evening before, they could take all that sand and make one huge mirror of the entire continent that God to use to part his hair from space.
Drinking in Australia wasn't the same without Dikko, although the young lady had done her best to keep him distracted. It was unfair really, drinking with Dikko was unlike anything else altogether; the man had consumed alcohol as if it were fuel for his raging personality.
James Bond longed for the English countryside and his DB5, he longed for the grass, the green hills, and the open roads, although many Englishmen had begun to make Perth and its environs their second home. Much like the Japanese in Hawaii, Perth and the Western Coast were slowly becoming more of an economic and social extension of London rather than Sydney.
He was propped up on one elbow in the early, morning light, staring at the half covered body of his lover from the night before. The pale satin of the cover sheet ran perpendicular to her backside as it crossed her hips. Rose Cross lay on her stomach, still breath the shallow air of sleep, as he gently let his eyes roll along her blonde locks, across her face where her crystal blue eyes still darted about a dream behind their sleeping lids. He reached out with his free hand and slowly, softly ran it along her flawless shoulder and down her back, barely rustling the soft, downy hair of her body. She made a cooing sound in her sleep.
Maybe, Bond decided, her dream had taken a turn for the better. He then ran the backside of his hand along the edge of her breast that was exposed to him, with her arm lifted and laced beneath her pillow, the pressure less subtle this time.
Her eyes slowly flickered open to greet him, and a smile quickly followed.
Such a waste, he thought.
"Hello, Love," she greeted him.
He played a soft smile for her, attempting to hide the callous man beneath.
As with most women he'd known, she'd made for the washroom, as if their restless lovemaking had been something that needed to be purged from her skin as quickly as possible.
"I still can't get over bumping into you at the Hyacinth Club," Rose called out above the sound of running water from the shower. "Why didn't we ever give things a go back at the office in London? Why did we have to wait until we were both half way about the globe?"
Rose had worked for the SIS at Regent's before being transferred to Station A, and it was true that she had caught his eye on many occasions, but nothing much had ever come of it.
"Providence, I guess," he replied as he swung his legs out from the bed, slipped into his khaki shorts and blue cotton, island shirt, and readied himself. "Either that, or the fact that half of England seems to be living here these days."
"You never did tell me what you were doing in Australia, James," she cried out again as the shower finally cut off. "Saving the world once again?"
He found himself a comfortable seat in a rattan chair which sat next to the bed at a 45 degree angle from the bathroom door.
"Actually, I'm here for the funeral of an old friend. Big Australian chap, worked with him a few times over the years. M felt it best that I represent the service."
There was a long pause from the bathroom.
"Was it anyone that I might know?" her voice was softer now with the shower off.
"I think so," he replied. "He was stationed in Japan for quite some time, but the last couple of years he was called back to Canberra. Old war wound limited him some, and they stuck him behind a desk like he'd always dreaded. Went by the name of Dikko, Dikko Henderson. He always said if they put him behind a desk it would kill him."
"Is that what did it?"
"No," he replied. "They pulled his body off of a reef. Miracle really that he was found at all, current this time of year, he should have been washed out to open water. The sharks had worked him over pretty well, but… there was enough to identify him."
Another pause.
"The name sounds familiar; did the two of you know each other well?"
Bond smiled, no disguise for the dark cruelty this time.
"Quite," he said. "We always seemed to end up in a bar or pub somewhere, pissed to the gills, always bragging about who could drink the most, who was the best with the ladies, the sort of things old mates go on about."
Dead silence now from the washroom.
"Rose, maybe you could help me clear something up, now that Dikko is gone. Which one of us was better?"
She was a pale, blonde blur as she bolted full speed from her concealment and dashed out the open terrace doors fully nude.
James Bond grimaced, and stood slowly, the Walther steady in his hand. Rose's beach house, well beyond the expense account of a civil servant, was a wonderful beachfront property. Secluded and surrounded by the damnable sand, and sand made for terribly slow running.
She was about fifteen yards out when he took her ankle with a clean shot from the open doors that looked out upon the Western shore of the Indian Ocean. Her beautiful body crumpled to the sand, writhing in pain. The water was relatively calm in the background as he trudged shoeless across the warm sand.
She was hysterical when he reached her, screaming and clutching at her bloody ankle attempting to quell the crimson flow.
"You knew! You knew the whole time, you bd, and you still made love to me!"
"I hear the Triads pay very well," he said, although he doubted that she would hear over her sobs. "But a man like Dikko, he was worth a thousand beach houses."
The sand was soaking up the torrent of blood like a sponge. He thought of how in Medieval times, they believed blood nourished the soil, and made the grass grow greener at ancient battlefields or jousting grounds. Maybe someday there'd be a spot of green here amongst this desolate sea of silica.
"Blood makes the grass grow. Kill, kill, kill," he muttered as he sunk two bullets home.