Bond Movies 03 - Licence to Kill (24 page)

Bond stood his ground, saying nothing. From above Heller’s voice could be heard shouting instructions to the fire-fighters, ‘In here! Quickly, if this spreads . . . !’ The shouts were cut off by a massive explosion from the laboratory. Even here, in Section One, they could feel the heat as a huge fireball ran the breadth of the building. There were cries as two of the fire-fighters were thrown from the gantry, their clothes blazing. They hit the mixing vat a second later and a mushroom cloud of smoke and flame rose in the worst explosion yet.

Sanchez seemed oblivious to the destruction. His arm moved quickly and he back-handed Bond across the face. ‘You don’t want to talk. No matter, Mr Bond.’ He nodded to Dario who limped across to a small door in the wall, level with the conveyor belt. Beside the door was a boxed-in knife-switch which Dario operated. The conveyor belt stopped moving.

Arms lifted Bond and dumped him on to the conveyor belt. He looked down. Once the thing began to move again he would quickly be hemmed in by the metal walls which held the cocaine in place as it was propelled downwards towards the metal teeth and whirling blades. The long ride down the belt looked like a bobsleigh run, he thought. The name of a book came into his head – Slay Ride, a good title for this.

Heller came panting down the gantry steps shouting at Sanchez, ‘I got the loaded tankers out in time. They’re waiting on the road. Franz, I don’t think we’re going to save this place!’

Sanchez gave a shrug of indifference. ‘Forget the fire,’ he spoke with a terrifying coldness. ‘Just forget it. Bring the cars on to the road, we’ll leave with the tankers.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, ‘If there’s time you can bring the buses around for Professor Joe’s people. But make sure we’re safe first.’ Heller nodded and quickly left.

The two henchmen still held Bond on the conveyor belt. Neither of them would move until Sanchez gave the order.

‘This place cost ten million bucks. We’ve
got
to save it!’

Sanchez turned and rasped out, ‘Do as I say! This was good cover for a long time. Now it’s over.’ He pointed to Truman-Lodge’s briefcase, ‘We’ve got
five hundred million in there
, so why gripe? There’re also twenty tons of Columbian pure, mixed with the gas in those trucks, so who needs this?’

‘But the deal with the Chinese?’

‘Since when did you get moralistic about deals, William? We got their money, didn’t we? Just go and help Heller. Get the place cleared out, get the cars ready.’

Lying on the conveyor belt, Bond caught sight of Heller again. A long way off now, and out of Sanchez’s vision, for he headed towards a main exit across the room, behind Sanchez’s back. The colonel, unnoticed by anyone in the chaos, was driving a fork-lift truck. On it were four unmistakable shapes. He had been right: they were not Stingers, or even Blowpipes. These little missiles were more the size of the old, now outmoded – and unstable – Redeyes. Even from where he lay, Bond could see there were differences: more streamlining, neater hand-packs. They looked like prototypes of something brand new. Small had become beautiful on the present day electronic battlefield, and these missiles would almost certainly be activated and guided by the new generation of microchip technology. To Bond their size had little to do with things. The quartet of missiles looked dangerous as they lay on the fork-lift, the sharp metal points of the forks sticking out from their deadly cargo.

Bond detected the anxiety flowing from Dario and Braun who still held him down, hard, seemingly oblivious to the raging fire, smoke or people coming and going in panic. Then Sanchez bent closer. ‘You want to do this the hard way, or the easy way, Bond? You see I’ve still got a very large business to run, so I have to know who you’ve been working for. Understand?’

Bond took a deep breath and told Sanchez that he was the least of the drug baron’s problems. ‘If you couldn’t trust your old buddy Krest, who can you trust, Franz? Truman-Lodge has gone off with all that money in his case. He going to give that back to you? And what of the missiles? Who’s in charge of those? Your precious Colonel Heller? He could use them on you with ease. Did you know he already almost sold you out to the Bouvier girl?’

‘What do you know about the missiles?’ For the first time, doubt clouded into Sanchez’s eyes. Smoke began to eddy into Section One as one of the other henchmen, Perez, came coughing through the door.

‘
Patron
, we gotta go soon. This whole place’s gonna blow.’ There were tears streaming from his eyes, and the smoke was getting thicker.

‘Where’s Heller?’ Sanchez snapped back at him.

‘He went to get the missiles,
patron
. We didn’t want them near the fire.’

‘That’s the last you’ll see of the gallant colonel,’ Bond said loudly.

‘Find Heller. Don’t let him out of your sight! Get him, you understand?’ Perez was out of sight before Sanchez had completed his orders.

‘Thank you, Mr Bond, for your advice.’ Sanchez’s arm came up, a closed fist crashing into Bond’s jaw as he moved away.

Bond saw the raised fist, felt a flash of pain, then the grey clouds of half-consciousness. Through the fog and mist he realised that he was moving, and a voice somewhere in the back of his head was telling him to do something: to rouse himself. His mind sent out orders to his limbs, but they refused all commands. The voice became louder and louder, more urgent, and with a massive effort, Bond began scrabbling with his legs and the movement helped clear the grey film that surrounded him.

He looked down to see that he was being relentlessly carried along the chute leading to the pulveriser. There were three blocks of cocaine ahead of him, and he rammed his feet down in the nearest block in an attempt to give him purchase. The block held for a second, and he was able to make a grab at the steel guiding wall on the right of the belt. His hands slipped and burned as he clung on, using every ounce of strength to pull himself to the top of the wall. He managed to slow down the movement, but his hands still slipped, and his body still moved. Inch by inch he saw the block of cocaine on which his feet rested being drawn closer and closer to the gnashing steel teeth of the pulveriser.

Then, with a final effort he hauled himself upwards, so that his shoulders now rested on the metal wall. But he was still slipping. He pulled again, then saw a movement, by the door, near the knife-switch that operated the conveyor belt. Smoke and flame seemed to be close and the figure took on a strange, almost warped shape. It was coming towards him, and, in another moment, Dario stood close to the wall of the conveyor belt.

‘I came to make sure. I’m glad I am not too late,’ he hissed, climbing up so that his paunchy stomach pressed on to Bond’s slipping hands. Above him, Bond saw Dario’s arm raised, and the long knife in the man’s right hand flashing, reflecting the flames.

‘You’re a dead man, Bond!’ The knife began to descend. Bond tensed, waiting for the pain that would send him to oblivion and the steadily chewing jaws of death, already chomping down on the block of cocaine under his feet.

16

GOODBYE JAMES BOND

‘You’re a dead man, Bond!’ As Dario yelled, so something else completed the words like a violent exclamation mark. The hand remained poised for the strike, but Dario’s eyes widened with shock.

It took a second for Bond to realise that the exclamation mark was a shot. Then someone spoke, and the voice seemed to come from far away.

‘You took the words right out of my mouth,’ the voice said, and Bond could not believe his ears.

Dario’s hand opened and the knife clattered down the chute and through the crunching teeth. There was not much blood, just a little around the man’s right shoulder, and as he pitched forward he was still very much alive, if not in control. He made one terrifying sound – half-scream, half-cry for help – as he went straight down and into the steel teeth of the pulveriser.

The scream hung on the air like some bad odour. Bond looked down, still clinging to the side of the chute. The powdered cocaine had turned from white to red. He blinked twice, not believing what he saw by the door – a vision in a long billowing white robe with a gun in her hand. For a fraction in time he wondered if he was indeed dead. Then the woman in white stretched out to her right, closing the knife-switch to
off,
and the conveyor belt ground to a stop.

‘You’re an angel, Pam,’ Bond said quietly as he came towards her, still a little unsteady. ‘You’re an absolute angel.’

‘Somebody else told me that, quite recently.’ She grinned at him. Then, nodding at the machinery, asked, ‘Did I . . . ?’

‘Let’s say you chewed him out.’ Bond went back and looked over the side of the metal, once more thinking that the conveyor belt looked like a bobsleigh run.
Slay ride
, he said to himself, must tell Sanchez. ‘Sanchez?’ he said aloud, as he walked back to Pam.

‘You okay, James?’

‘Will be in a minute. But what about Sanchez?’

‘Well, your uncle arrived with the local law . . .’

‘And they got him?’

‘I don’t think so. Not yet. They’re in the Institute parking lot, dealing with Professor Joe’s disciples.’

‘They didn’t stop the convoy? The tankers?’

‘What tankers?’

Bond was already moving towards the door. ‘There’re five tankers and all Sanchez’s people, heading away from here. I suspect towards the airport. You mean, the police didn’t . . . ?’ He saw the look on Pam’s face and knew the answer. ‘You got transport?’

‘Only the little crop duster.’

‘Let’s go then . . .’

‘James, you’ve done enough. Let the police handle this.’

‘Oh no!’ He was up and running. ‘I want Sanchez for myself. Come on.’ He passed through the door, dragging at Pam who was hampered by the robe, and just as they got through the exit, an explosion caved in the factory roof.

They went back the way Pam had come, down wide corridors, and walled mazes. Behind them the heat and smoke became worse, and occasionally they passed people in the white Olimpatec robes, running in panic.

Just before they reached the final exit they turned sharp right. Pam stopped in a skid, hand to her mouth, eyes wide with fright. A fork-lift truck stood facing a brick wall, its sharp jutting forks skewering into a body crushed against the wall. It was Heller.

‘My God, what . . . ?’ Pam began.

‘Looks like he came to a dead end.’ Bond knew two things. First, his bluff with Sanchez had worked; second, that Sanchez had the missiles and would undoubtedly use them if any problem arose. It made action against the tanker convoy even more hazardous. ‘Where’s the plane?’ he asked.

‘A mile, mile and a half away.’

‘We have to get transport before that.’ People were still running about, there were cries of panic everywhere, white robes flapped and, behind, the awesome sound of fire increased as though someone had turned up a volume control.

Around the next corner they found themselves at an archway, and outside the temple, the great red-blocked walls seemed to rear up above them. It had to be a side entrance, for Bond could only see dusty dry grass, with the trees some four hundred yards away. Near the archway stood a little electric golf-cart. ‘There,’ he shouted, but Pam beat him to the driving seat, starting the motor. ‘I only hope this is fully charged. I always . . .’ They were moving and she stopped speaking suddenly, slewing the steering wheel over the dry ground, sending up a spray of dust.

All Bond saw was a figure in white and gold robes, panting along at a steady trot. ‘You’re going to take that guy out, Pam. Careful . . .’ The cart hit the figure sideways on, throwing him into the dust, and Bond was aware of Pam reaching down and pulling a briefcase into the cart. ‘Good luck, Professor Joe!’ she yelled as they moved off, her foot down hard on the accelerator so that they must have been doing almost twenty-five miles an hour.

‘What the hell’s that?’ Bond shouted, making a grab for the briefcase.

‘What d’you think it is? Money, of course. I lent it to the Prof.’

‘What money?’

‘The walking-around money from the casino. The cheque was made out to me, remember?’

Bond smiled. ‘We’ll talk about it later,’ he said. ‘Just put your foot down!’

‘What d’you think I’m doing? Both my feet are
through
the floor.’

‘Look at her go!’ Bond raised his voice in what sounded like a yell of triumph, though he knew triumph had yet to be earned.

Captain Rojas had been very efficient, arriving with two helicopters within twenty minutes of Q’s call. ‘My people are shadowing Sanchez and his party. He has orientals with him, Chinese, yes?’

Q nodded. ‘Chinese, Koreans, you name it he has them. The major drug dealers of the Orient.’

‘Then I think they will be heading to the so-called Olimpatec Meditation Institute. The locals call it the temple. My own colleagues have suspected the place for some time, but nobody has ever been there. It is difficult to take action like that when the really big brass are on the take, you understand?’

‘Only too well.’ Q was itching to get going for he really was very worried about James and Pam now.

‘It is sensible first to make a small detour.’ Rojas was a man who knew exactly what to do, and Q could see there was no way he could be deflected from whatever he had decided. ‘So first, back to the helicopters. We’re going to do a little mopping up at the Sanchez estate. If the big man is away, there will not be many of the criminal element there.’

As the police chopper moved away Q shouted at the captain that they should at least take Sanchez’s mistress with them.

‘The Lamora woman?’ Rojas sneered. ‘Why bother with her? Her kind are two a penny.’

‘I think not,’ Q howled in his ear, telling him of the way she had shielded Bond from suspicion, and even come to the hotel that morning, putting herself at risk.

Roja’s attitude changed slightly. ‘We’ll see. You realise this is probably the only chance I’ll ever get to deal with Franz Sanchez and his people. Even if we get them all, I cannot vouch for any fair trial. Or any trial at all, come to that. Maybe it would be best if we just did away with them. We’ll see.’