Solo

walking jauntily on the road back to Port Dunbar.
    There was an intercom on the gate and Bond pressed the button.
    ‘Yes?’ a crackling voice said after Bond had rung a second time. ‘Who there?’
    ‘Kobus Breed,’ Bond said. ‘It’s very urgent.’
    The buzzer sounded and Bond slid the gate back and stepped into the compound. A light above the front door came on and a couple of chained dogs barked angrily at him. The door opened and Tony Msour stood there in a string vest and a pair of loose mauve cotton trousers. He was smoking a small stumpy cigar. It was strange seeing him in his civilian persona, Bond thought, minus the white face and the green circles round his eyes. In fact he was a handsome man with fine features and very dark skin – more Nilotic or Nubian than Fakassa. He had two little vertical tribal scars under his eyes. Bond gave a loose salute.
    ‘Where be Breed?’ Msour said, a little suspiciously.
    ‘He sent me. They’re trying to recapture the bridge at Lamu-Penu.’
    ‘Jesos Chrise.’
    ‘Exactly. Breed’s rushing men up. He needs you – fast.’
    Msour thought for a second. ‘It will be one hundred dollars.’
    ‘Of course. Breed said the money wasn’t a problem. There’s real trouble up there.’
    Msour dashed back into the house and emerged minutes later with a shirt on and a large kitbag – containing his beads, skirt, gourd and whisk, Bond supposed – and followed Bond out to the Peugeot. Msour chucked his kitbag in the back and climbed into the car beside Bond.
    ‘I don’t like to doing this at night, you know. That is why I go charge you extra, extra.’
    ‘I quite understand,’ Bond said and started the engine, roaring off down the road towards Port Dunbar at high speed. After five minutes they passed through a large plantation of oil palms and Bond slowed, keeping his eyes open for the turning he’d spotted earlier on the way out. He turned off the road on to a dirt track that led into the plantation, the one headlight of Sunday’s Peugeot illuminating the serried trunks of the palm trees.
    ‘Where you dey go?’ Msour asked.
    ‘Short cut. We’re in a hurry,’ Bond said and then turned off the track and drove into the plantation itself, bumping along the avenue of palm trees.
    ‘You done go craze, man!’ Msour shouted.
    ‘Shit. Wrong turning,’ Bond said. ‘Sorry.’ He stopped the car, put the gear lever into reverse and then punched Msour full in the face, knocking his head back so heavily against the windowpane that it smashed with a tinkle of glass. Msour cried in pain and Bond reached across him, opened the door and kicked him out of the car. Bond leaped out and ran round to find Msour on his hands and knees, shaking his head as if he couldn’t believe what had happened to him. Bond stood above him and brought the edge of his hand down full force on to the exposed nape of his neck with a karate chop. Msour was flattened, face in the dirt, poleaxed, out cold.
    Bond opened the boot and dragged Msour’s limp body over, tipping him into the space. Msour made no sound as Bond rolled him on to his back and forced his mouth open. He unscrewed the cap on his ketchup bottle and filled Msour’s gaping mouth with some of the solution. He sat him up and heard the fluid go down with a reflex gurgle then repeated the process. He should be comatose for at least forty-eight hours, according to Quentin Dale of Q Branch. Then Bond added the kitbag and the two litres of water Sunday had provided in a plastic container and slammed the boot shut, locking it. He took the clasp knife Sunday had brought out of his pocket and punctured all four tyres. The Peugeot settled with a hissing wheeze of escaping air. Then with a rock he smashed the windscreen and the remaining windows. Finally he kicked dents in the bodywork and threw handfuls of dirt and leaves over the car.
    He looked around. He was in the heart of the plantation far from the road and the dirt track. It was doubtful that anyone would casually come across the Peugeot here – if they did there was little to scavenge; it looked like an old wreck. And even if Msour came round in a day or so and shouted and banged on the lid of the boot it was highly unlikely he’d be heard. Bond was hoping for two or three days, at least. With a little luck Msour might be missing for even more.
    He walked back to the track and, turning, saw that the Peugeot was invisible. He set off and after five minutes regained the road to