Devil May Care

or weaken him.
    ‘We have two shifts of twelve hours each,’ said Gorner, ‘so we’re never idle. That’s a further economy that none of my competitors can make.’
    ‘Don’t they have a break?’ said Bond.
    ‘They have a two-minute water break every three hours. There is a degree of … natural wastage. They die at their post. They are carried out. You probably saw one go just now. We have no shortage of replacements. Even the Shah’s government admits there are two million addicts in Iran, and each day more young people become addicted. Chagrin has a recruitment team that brings in roughly twenty men a day through Yazd and Kerman. It’s a revolving door.’
    ‘That’s despicable,’ said Bond.
    ‘It’s good business,’ said Gorner. ‘Everything I know about slavery I learned from the British Empire and its colonies. Africa, India, the West Indies. I was a most willing student of British techniques, Bond. And these men … They’re trash. They’d die anyway. We prolong their lives. And at the end of each shift I even give them an entertainment. You’ll see. We’ll go back to my office now.’
    Back in the red-walled room, Gorner sat at his desk. He pressed a button beneath the top, and a panel slid back behind him, giving him a window on to the factory floor. ‘Sometimes I like to look at them,’ he said, ‘and sometimes I grow tired of their struggles. Anomie, Bond. I feel it sometimes. It is the weariness that eats the soul – the enemy of great achievement.’
    He caused the panel to close and swung round in hischair. ‘One day, Bond, I will make as many heroin addicts in Britain as Britain made in China. One day soon. Then you’ll lose your precious status at the United Nations. You’ll lose the Cold War, too. You’ll become the third-world country you deserve to be.’
    ‘Tell me one thing,’ said Bond. ‘How did you manage to fight for both the Red Army and the Nazis with your disability? Your hand.’
    It was a risk he had calculated.
    For a moment, the hard blue eyes were hidden as the cheekbones rose and the teeth met in an audible grinding. Then Gorner breathed out with a snort.
    ‘You can know nothing of the Eastern Front, you idiot. These were not jolly Tommies with a cup of tea at five and stab you in the back at six. These were animals, freezing to death, killing with their bare hands, raping, torturing and murdering. They welcomed any recruit – the maimed, the mad, the deaf, the syphilitic. If you could pull a trigger – if you could find a rifle – you were in. It was what you would call “all hands to the pump”.’
    Gorner had regained control. He almost smiled. ‘There. I think I have made a joke. All hands … Even this one.’
    Then he lifted the white glove and stared hard at Bond, challenging him to meet his eye.
    ‘Would you like to see it?’
    ‘No.’
    ‘Go on, Bond. I know you’re curious. You don’t become a secret agent without curiosity. Let me show you.’
    Gorner peeled off the glove and held his hand close to Bond’s face. The palm was long and flat, whitish-pink on the underside, black and wrinkled on the back. The first joint of the fingers was exceptionally long, and the blackenednails were triangular. All the skin was dry, and deep with simian lines. The thumb was short and set so far down towards the wrist as to be of no use working with the other digits. From the knuckle upward, the thing was covered in thick, blackish-brown hair, like a chimpanzee’s. Midway between the wrist and the elbow, the forearm became a man’s.
    Gorner replaced the glove. Bond showed no reaction.
    The two men stood about a foot apart, staring into one another’s eyes. Neither blinked.
    ‘Why did you change sides in the war?’ said Bond.
    ‘Because the Nazis could no longer win. Their war was over. By 1944 the Cold War had already begun in Eastern Europe. I wanted to be on the side that would eventually beat the British. So I switched to the Soviet Army.’
    Bond said nothing. Most of what Gorner had said confirmed what M had told him. What Bond had learned was that the question of his hand could still unbalance him, even if only for a moment.
    ‘Now to business,’ said Gorner. ‘My opium – my raw material – has to come from somewhere. I can’t get enough from Turkey. I am using Chagrin’s connections to open up the Far East. Laos is a good source, and the Americans have been most surprisingly helpful there. Did you know that the CIA has its