Chapter 9 – A true Scotsman's death
The shock of icy water splashing over him brought Bond to life. He tried to stir, but to no avail. He uttered a low groan, struggling to collect his wits, and gradually realized his situation. He was held upright, tightly tied to an improvised rack, which seemed to be a vertical ladder. His arms were stretched to the back side of the ladder with the wrists tied to the rungs, and expert bindings around his shoulders and armpits maintained his back flat against the metal rack. Other strands of rope just below his waist immobilized his hips, and his ankles were tied to the broadly spaced stiles. He was completely naked, and as his feet almost didn't touch the floor, his dulled body weighed heavily on the ropes, biting hard in his flesh. As he slowly regained consciousness, the pain was brought back in his whole body. He felt the pangs deep in his stomach, his skull was aching like hell, but worst of all his shattered ribcage stabbed him with every breath. Broken ribs, he thought in a haze, but as far as he could tell, nothing else seemed to be broken.
Another splash of icy water made him come to for good. He tried to move again, but there was no play in the bindings, and the sharp pain in his chest made him groan once more. Bond shook his head, and through the blood dripping from the arch of his right eyebrow, focused his eyes to scrutinize the place. He was effectively tied to a kind of metal ladder leading to a closed trap-door, at the third of the length of a long dark room without windows. A similar ladder was symmetrically set at the other end of the room. From the stifling heat, the metallic walls and the humming of powerful diesel engines, he inferred he could be in a boat hold.
Just in front of him, a squat blond man with a crew-cut holding an empty bucket in his hands was observing him carefully to determine the necessity of a third splash. Bond felt a shudder run down his spine when he recognized Dmitri Sokolov. Standing back a few steps, Maxim Fokin in person was watching him. His figure seemed incongruous in this dreadful room: whereas Sokolov wore a stained vest and battle dress trousers, his boss was dressed in an elegant black dinner jacket, and casually smoked one of his favourite cigarillos. He looked like he was arriving straight from a dinner party. Behind the Russian tycoon, two henchmen were holding Sára by her arms. She looked terrible: her clothes were soaking wet, certainly from the same awakening method, and she seemed almost unable to stand up on her own. She was visibly in shock and still under the effect of the incapacitating agent. Her eyes were gazing at Bond as if asking what this was all about. His heart sank, and he hoped that at least they would kill her quickly. For there seemed to be no other option than death for them now, and the presence of Sokolov, the sadistic torturer, was a clear sign of what was going to happen.
When their eyes met, Fokin addressed him cheerfully:
- "Mr. Bond! Welcome aboard the Sárkány! She's one of my coal barges specially fitted out for having "small talks" with my guests. Look," he made a gesture towards the ceiling, "there's a one metre layer of coal above us, and water on the other sides. Totally soundproof. Can you dream of a better place?"
Bond made a terrible effort to speak in a hoarse but intelligible voice:
- "Actually, yes, I can dream of some better places to be at the moment..."
Fokin smiled:
- "I can understand. But you deserved to be there, Mr. Bond. You've given my men a lot of trouble today, you know. And to top it all off, you had me leaving earlier than expected my charity dinner... This well planned operation ends in a terrible mess. Such a shame."
- "Which operation?" The words came out painfully.
- "I think you perfectly know what I'm talking about. I've been told that your friend, Dr. Kiss, discovered something she wasn't supposed to... Really, it's a pity you involved her in this business. After your very effective intervention in Prague to clean out the Dobroski gang, everything was supposed to go smoothly: you had found the stolen data back, and the Mercurius project could go on with the little "improvements" we had added..."
- "Dobroski, ..." Bond didn't manage to end up his sentence, but Fokin continued:
- "Oh, Dobroski was the perfect fool to be used! Thanks to him I had the data stolen without drawing attention to me, and made the whole theft look like a nasty trick by some clumsy mobsters. By the way, I expected you to have him killed... Fortunately, he was a total dummy, and couldn't tell much... He never understood what he was involved in. Anyway, I had to dispose of him as soon as I could." He grinned: "Standard procedure, you know."
Despite the shooting pain in his chest, Bond was beginning to master his breathing. His next sentence came in a steadier voice:
- "Why did you choose Mercurius? It's not your... usual line of business..."
- "That's exactly the point, Mr. Bond! You know what is nice with the coal mining industry? Of course, it's not very glamorous, but it's the perfect cover for a little intelligence business like mine. Do you know that more than fifty countries in the world have commercial coal mines? And there are coal reserves in virtually every country on this planet! Can you dream of a better reason for my men prospecting, gathering information and cultivating profitable relationships all around the world? Yes, coal is wonderful. But there's something more that coal can't get me: in our days, Mr. Bond, the power lies in economics, and this is where intelligence work should be directed to. Being in control of the Mercurius protocol would have given me total access to all the major economic intelligence in the world. This would have given me a leg up on competition from any other intelligence agency. But this project ended tonight... Do you have any idea how much time and money I've devoted to setting up this operation?"
Bond ignored the question:
- "How did you find us at the hotel?"
- "Elementary! I had your car traced with a GPS chip. I had a permanent, yet invisible tail on you."
Bond, along with anger, felt some relief: there was no point in lying to him now, and this meant he hadn't been betrayed by a mole inside MI6. Fokin continued:
- "Unfortunately, you made the business less smooth than it was supposed to be... Apart from ruining my plans, you killed one of my men tonight, almost killed another at the hotel, not to mention the mess you made of what was supposed to be a clean, unnoticed abduction. You really deserved me to take care of you personally. And believe me, I know how to deal with those who thwart me."
He took the time to light a new cigarillo before going on.
- "I heard you're from Scotland, Mr. Bond. I'll do you a favour, and offer you a true Scotsman's death. I will offer you the death of William Wallace." He turned to Sára, and asked civilly, as if engaging light conversation with her : "Do you know the story, Doctor? This William Wallace was a Scottish knight, and the leader of resistance against English occupation, at the turn of the XIIIth and XIVth centuries. He is still a kind of national hero in Scotland. Anyway, the best is in the end: after his capture by the English, William Wallace has been one of the first men to be 'hanged, drawn and quartered', a penalty that used to be highly popular for treason in England. Do you know what it involved, Doctor? But I'm sure Mr. Bond knows..." Maxim Fokin turned back to Bond, with his thin, civil smile. "We'll follow the good old traditional procedure. First, Dmitri will start with cutting off your... How did they say in the old days? Yes! Your "privy parts". It's always a very entertaining debut, believe me! Maybe you'll faint at some point, but don't worry: we will do the necessary to revive you so that you don't miss anything. Because then comes the most interesting part: Dmitri will slit your stomach open, search your entrails and slowly, very slowly, disembowel you. He is really good, you know, I've observed him: he can keep you alive for hours, half-gutted... It will take very long hours before the little pieces of you feed the Danube fishes. I promise you you'll beg to die, Mr. Bond, and I promise you death won't come easy."
Sára, still too weak to struggle, was looking at the scene in horror and disbelief, her eyes going from the Russian to Bond's naked body tied up to the ladder, as if she was looking desperately for any sign that all this was only a nightmare. Fokin nodded to the henchmen who where holding her. Without a word, they gagged her with adhesive tape, handcuffed her to the ladder facing Bond, and left the room by an exit that he couldn't see, behind his back.
- "Fokin, I'm a professional, I understand you want to take vengeance on me, but this woman doesn't belong in our business. For the sake of your honour, as a former officer..."
The Russian burst into a short, harsh laugh:
- "How chivalrous! You really deserve to die like a 'Braveheart'! You have guts, Commander... Enjoy them while you can." Fokin turned to Dmitri and added in Russian: "Go on. The full treatment."
The stony face of the torturer didn't betray any emotion, but a mad blaze lit his eyes. He disappeared out of Bond's sight for some seconds, and came back trailing a little worktable and a canvas bag. He put it beside Bond, on his left, and started taking out of the bag and disposing on the worktable a mix of surgical tools and hunting knives with a meticulousness that was obviously the beginning of his jubilation.
Bond felt sick with the apprehension of what was ineluctably to come. His training regarding resistance to interrogation had taught him to face realities. Hopefully, he would bleed quickly to death at the first stage of the torture, or at least pass out. He wished he could. But he also knew a skilled and patient sadistic torturer would be able to take him to the pit of hell... There was absolutely no hope left. There was only the experience of pain in front of him, to the edge of madness, and the regrets for having involved Sára. He met her eyes: she was still too weak to move about on her rack, but her chaotic breathing was a sign of panic. He hoped she would pass out without being forced to watch Dmitri's macabre ritual. Bond put these thoughts aside, and concentrated on the last thing he had left: his anger. He let it coil inside him, putting all his last strength in it. The torturer had now picked up his first instrument, a large hunting knife with an eight-inch blade. Tucking the knife in his trousers belt, he finally grabbed a piece of thin rope and turned to his prey. Bond, feeling his heart thumping madly in his chest, started to curse in Russian, calling Dmitri any name he knew. It started like a whisper, a painful murmur out of his crushed lungs, then it grew and swelled to become a powerful, angry and desperate shout. Bond was so concentrated on shouting out his anger that he didn't realise what was going on, until three damped shots resounded in the room. Staggered, he looked in front of him to see Dmitri crumpling down. Two men in black tactical suits and balaclavas, armed with MP5SD silenced rifles, were already barking orders at Maxim Fokin, throwing him to the ground and handcuffing him. When the Russian was under their control, one of them proceeded to free Sára who had finally fainted, as the other was cutting Bond's ropes. A third man came into Bond's sight, took off his balaclava and addressed him:
- "Commander, I'm Agent 227, and this is the protection team you asked for. We have successfully taken over and secured this barge. Are you injured?"
Bond was unable to answer, out of emotion and exhaustion. When the last of the ropes maintaining him upright fell to the ground, two of the men tried to support him by the arms. This simple move made the stabbing pain in his chest unbearable, and he allowed himself to pass out with relief.