Devil May Care - Sebastian Faulks [67]
In the meantime, he thought his interests were better served by doing as Gorner said. Sooner or later Gorner would have to disclose the details of his proposed ‘military intervention’, and then Bond, given a chance, would at least be in a position to pass a worthwhile message back to London, or to Darius in Tehran. It was probable that he would die in the process, but if he could somehow get word back that
enabled defences to be put in place, then at least he would have done his job.
Eight hours passed with no food, no water and no sign of Scarlett. Bond was dozing fitfully when he was summoned back to Gorner’s office at gunpoint. This time, Chagrin was standing next to his master.
‘You’re going on an exercise, Bond,’ said Gorner.
‘You can view it as a kind of reconnaissance before the main action. Sometimes these preliminaries can be as dangerous as the real thing, however. You may not survive, but it will amuse me to see what you’re made of. And I’m sure it’ll be good for you. You’ll learn a lot. I’m going to place you in the care of Chagrin, my most trusted lieutenant.’
The man in the kepi stepped forward at the sound of his name. He then muttered something to the guard, who clicked his heels and left.
‘I think it’s time you knew a little more about Chagrin,’ said Gorner. ‘His real name is Pham Sinh Quoc. He fought for the Viet Minh. He was a dedicated Communist soldier against the French. When the French colonized Indo-China they sent many nuns and missionaries. Religion was not good enough for the great lay Republic of France at home, where church and state had been separate since 1789, but they always exported Catholicism to the little
coloured people whose land they stole. I suppose it eased their conscience.’
The guard, accompanied by three others, had returned with a gibbering workman in a grey uniform. The man fell to his knees, clearly terrified of what lay in wait.
‘When Chagrin and his comrades came to a village in the north where the children had been listening to Bible classes, they used to tear out the tongue of the preacher with a pair of pliers. Then he couldn’t preach any more. That’s what we still do to people who talk too much.’
Gorner nodded to Chagrin, who took a pair of chopsticks from his pocket. Two guards held the workman’s arms rigid behind him while Chagrin inserted a chopstick into each of the man’s ears.
‘And this is what Chagrin used to do to the children who had listened to the Bible.’
Bracing his feet at either side of the man, Chagrin banged the flat of his hands as hard as he could against the ends of the chopsticks, drilling them into the man’s head. Blood spurted from his ears as he screamed and fell forward on the floor.
‘He won’t hear anything for a long while now,’
said Gorner. ‘Not till his eardrums grow back. Some of the children never heard again.’
Two guards dragged the screaming man away while two remained in the room.
‘And I expect you’d like to know how Chagrin came by his nickname. The word means both ‘‘pain’’
and ‘‘grief’’ in French. Remarkable that a language should use the same word for both, don’t you think? But there was something else about Chagrin that made him a better, fiercer soldier than anyone else. When the Russians liberated the Nazi concentration camps they took the papers relating to the Nazi doctors’ experiments. A highly secret section of the Soviet health ministry continued with experiments along the same lines for many years afterwards. Unlike the Nazis, they asked for volunteers. Travel costs and a financial reward were guaranteed. Word reached Chagrin’s Communist cell in North Vietnam and he volunteered to go to a clinic in Omsk. Russian military doctors were interested in the neurological basis of psychopaths – by which