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Scaraa, with a flick of his wrist, tossed the knife into the air The sliver of steel spun like a wheel in the sunshine Bond had to step aside The knife pierced the a gave a harsh laugh The laugh turned into a cough The gaunt face contorted painfully Too painfully? Scaraht haea could be out of hospital in a couple of weeks Scaraa put down his piece of snake and did exactly as Bond had told hi Bond's face with his usual cold, arrogant stare He finished and picked up the piece of snake and began gnawing it He looked up "Satisfied?"

"Sufficiently" Bond squatted down on his heels He held his gun loosely, ai somewhere halfway between the two of theot too a This is the end of the road You've killed too oing to kill you But I'll esson Reh both of his knees and both of his elbows Then you h to boast about it to your friends in CubaIt got back to us As a matter of interest, how many men have you killed in your life?"

"With you, it'll ment of backbone clean He tossed it towards Bond "Eat that, scuet any secrets out of et I've been shot at by experts and I', but I've never heard of a limey who'd shoot a defenceless uts We'll just sit here, chewing the fat, until the rescue teaet me for, eh?"

"Well, just for a start, there's that nice Mr Rotkopf with one of your famous silver bullets in his head in the river back of the hotel"

"That'll match with the nice Mr Hendriks with one of your bullets soether That'd be nice, wouldn't it? They say the jail at Spanish Town has all the comforts How about it, limey? That's where you'll be found with a shiv in your back in the sack-sewing department And by the sa was bugged Seea You hired the wrong security ers were froton by now That's got the ot it co from every which way"

"Tape isn't evidence in an American court But I see what you ot esture of the right hand--"take a million bucks and call it quits?"

"I was offered three million on the train"

"I'll double that"

"No Sorry" Bond got to his feet The left hand behind his back was clenched with the horror of what he was about to do He forced hiesson must have looked like, of the others that this man had killed, of the ones he would kill afresh if Bond weakened This man was probably the most efficient one-man death-dealer in the world James Bond had him He had been instructed to take hi doounded or in any other position Bond assumed casualness, tried to es for anyone, Scara after? I'll take care of it if it's personal I'll keep it to h, but carefully This tune the laugh didn't turn into the red cough "Quite the little English gentleman! Just like I spelled it out S'pose you wouldn't like to hand un and leave me to ht, boyo! I'd crawl after you and blast the back of your head off" The eyes still bored into Bond's with the arrogant superiority, the cold superuner man who killed for money and, by the way he sometimes did it, for the kicks

Bond exaa fail to break when he was going to die in ? Some hidden weapon? But the ainst the ranite of his face not cru

even minutely in defeat On his forehead there was not as a lay in dappled black shadow For tenin blazing sunshine Suddenly he felt the vitality oozing out through his feet into the blackwith it He said, and he heard his voice ring out harshly, "All right, Scaraun and held it in the two-handed grip of the targetto a held up a hand For the first tily, supplicated "I'm a Catholic, see? Just let , then you can blaze away Every o It's the luck of the gaht, it'd be you that's dead in place of ht? Can I say un He would give the ive him more Pain and heat and exhaustion and thirst It wouldn't be long before he lay down hiht there on the hard cracked mud, just to rest If someone wanted to kill him, they could He said, and the words caa One a's hands went up to his face and covered his eyes There came a drone of Lathi which went on and on Bond stood there in the sunshine, his gun lowered, watching Scarae of his focus dulled by the pain and the heat and the hypnotic litany that came frooing to have to do--in one a's right hand crawled imperceptibly sideways across his face, inch by inch, centiot to his ear and stopped The drone of the Lathi prayer never altered its slow, lulling tempo