Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks [61]
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 own airline, Air America, that actually flies out cargoes of opium?’
‘ That’s absurd,’ said Bond.
‘ That’s politics,’ said Gorner. ‘Air America takes weapons to the anti-Communist warlords and returns with consignments of opium poppies. What do you expect from an airline whose motto is ‘‘Anything, Anytime, Anywhere’’? Thousands of GIs are addicts now. The CIA headquarters in northern Laos has a plant where they refine heroin. That part of Asia is the source of seventy per cent of the world’s illicit opium and the major supplier for America’s insatiable market.’
‘And are you getting your hands on that too?’
‘Yes. Chagrin is working on it. I’m paying over the odds there at the moment. It’s an investment. I don’t really like it because my money goes directly to funding the American war effort. But there’s one major advantage. It means the CIA is unofficially inclined to look on my global activities with a rather forgiving eye. I’m sure you understand why that might be helpful.’
‘Russia, America . . . You’ve covered all the angles, haven’t you?’ said Bond.
‘ That’s certainly my intention,’ said Gorner. ‘It makes sound business sense. One day I’ll buy at
better prices in the Far East. For the moment, the bulk of my supply is coming from Afghanistan, in Helmand province. And this is where you come in, Bond. The border is causing us some problems at the moment. There are bandits everywhere, some with rocket launchers and grenades as well as handguns. There’s a run my men have to make near Zabol, when they’re loaded up with opium. They call it Hellfire Pass. Do you know why?’
Bond shook his head.
‘It’s named after a section of the Burma railway built by Anzac prisoners-of-war under the Japanese. They say one man lost his life for every yard of track laid down. They were very brave men, those Anzacs, fighting your war for you.’
‘I know they were,’ said Bond. ‘ They were among the finest.’
‘Anyway, that’s what we’ve been losing. Not quite a man a yard, but too many. And I can’t send addicts, so I’m having to waste real men. I want you to go to Zabol with Chagrin. You leave tomorrow morning.’
‘Why?’
‘I think it would be an education for you.’
Gorner stood up, and the panel behind him
opened. ‘And now,’ he said, ‘it’s time for the evening entertainment. Come over here, Bond.’
A guard pushed an automatic rifle into the base of Bond’s spine.
In the glass walkway on the far side of the heroin plant, a door opened. A woman was pushed out by a guard and left alone as the door closed. She had no clothes on.
‘We call it the Lambeth Walk,’ said Gorner. ‘A good old Cockney entertainment.’
Three more women, also naked, were propelled on to the walkway.
‘ They have to make a complete circuit,’ said Gorner. ‘ The men like to stand underneath and watch.’
‘Who are these women?’
‘ They’re no one. They’re prostitutes. Most are addicts. They get scooped up along with the men. When they’re losing their allure, say after two or three days, I let the men have their way with them.’
‘You what?’
‘ The guards lead them down on to the factory floor and the men take them outside. It’s free entertainment and it’s good for morale.’
‘And what do you do with the girls afterwards?’
Gorner looked at Bond curiously. ‘Why, bury them, of course.’
Then he turned back towards the entry where the
girls were coming in and came as close to smiling