Solo

corner. He groped for a switch, found it and clicked on the light.
    The man was shivering, knees drawn up to his chest, lying on a befouled sheet. An African man, naked except for a pair of filthy underpants. He turned towards Bond and muttered something. His head was shaven and he had a small goatee beard. Gabriel Adeka.
    Bond stepped forward, recoiling slightly from the feculent smell. Gabriel Adeka in the grip of terrible cold turkey. His face and shaved head were shiny with sweat and his whole body shook with recurring tremors. On a table across the room was an enamel kidney dish, a Bunsen burner attached to a camping gas canister, a length of rubber tubing, some spoons and several syringes still wrapped in their plastic seals. All the paraphernalia required for shooting up heroin.
    Bond was thinking hard – so this was why no one saw Gabriel Adeka any more. Breed had turned him into a junkie and kept him locked in this cellar, no doubt on a regime of drug-injection and then deprivation, turning him into this dehumanised, desperate addict.
    Gabriel Adeka reached out a shivering hand to Bond, his big eyes imploring, beseeching. Give me more, I beg you, give me my nirvana in a needle.
    Except it wasn’t Gabriel Adeka, Bond now saw, and grew rigid at the recognition. The last time he’d seen this man he had been lying in a hospital bed in Port Dunbar. Brigadier Solomon Adeka, military genius, the ‘African Napoleon’, begging for a syringe full of heroin.
    ‘It’s a terrible thing, addiction,’ a voice said. ‘Put your gun down on the table and turn round very slowly.’
    Bond did as he was told and laid his gun down beside the syringes and swivelled round carefully.
    Standing in the doorway was the tall lanky figure of Hulbert Linck – except his blond hair was cut short and dyed black and he had a full beard. He was wearing a tan canvas windcheater and jeans and was covering Bond with an automatic pistol. He stepped into the room, glancing at Adeka.
    ‘Forgive the precaution, Mr Bond – I hope you understand. This is all Kobus Breed’s doing,’ he said. ‘Breed has kept me and Adeka here prisoners while he and his men use the charity to smuggle drugs into the USA. He’s becoming extremely rich extremely fast.’ Linck smiled. ‘Funny that it should be you, Bond, who’s come to our rescue.’ He lowered his gun and put it on the table beside Bond’s.
    ‘We are very happy to surrender ourselves to you,’ Linck said. ‘Very happy.’
    The first shot hit Linck just in front of his left ear sending a fine skein of blood spraying from his head and the second smashed into his chest, slamming him heavily against the wall. He slid down it, leaving a thin smeary trail of blood and toppled over. Adeka screamed and gibbered, huddling in the corner.
    Agent Massinette irrupted into the room, gun levelled at Adeka. He was followed immediately by Brig Leiter. Bond heard the clatter of other footsteps coming down the corridor overhead.
    ‘You OK, Mr Bond?’ Brig Leiter said.
    Bond had his eyes on Massinette, who was crouching over Linck’s body searching his pockets.
    ‘Why the fuck did you shoot him?’ Bond said, his voice heavy with fury.
    Massinette turned and stood up.
    ‘He had a gun and was going to kill you.’
    ‘He was putting his gun down. He was surrendering to me.’
    ‘It didn’t look like that from the bottom of the stairs,’ Brig said. ‘We couldn’t take any chances.’
    Massinette stooped and took something from Linck’s pocket. He had another gun in his hand, a little Smith and Wesson .22 revolver, it looked like.
    ‘This was in his pocket, Mr Bond,’ Massinette said. ‘He was fooling you. He had other plans.’
    Bond looked at the two agents.
    ‘I apologise,’ he said, though he knew full well that Massinette had just planted the second gun on Linck’s body. But why? He stopped himself from trying to answer that question as Felix Leiter came into the room.
    ‘You took your time,’ Bond said. ‘Still, very pleased to see your ugly face.’
    They shook hands warmly. Right hand to left hand.
    ‘The company you keep, James,’ Felix said, tut-tutting with a smile. ‘Where’s Kobus Breed?’
    ‘Out on the back lawn – dead. I’ll show you. You’d better get some medical help for Adeka here. He’s in a bad way.’
    ‘I’ll get on to it,’ Brig said, taking a walkie-talkie out of his pocket and calling for an ambulance and medics.
    Bond and Felix climbed the stairs