John Gardner (3 page)

“Fool. Stop that,’ yelled Ourumov. “If you hit any of the hardware, you’ll blow us all to hell and gone.

Bond drew back, and looked at the timer he was about to insert into the final charge, the one that would bring about a chain reaction and blow most of the place to pieces. He glanced across to the other side of the factory floor towards the conveyor belt. The start button was set into a metal post near the fringed rubber flap.

“I give you a count of ten,’ Ourumov shouted. “If you’re not out by then, I will shoot your coMr.ade.”

“And set off an inferno?” Bond set the timer for one minute and plugged it into the explosive charge.

Then he removed a grenade from the belt pouch that contained four of these lethal little bombs.

“One Two…” Ourumov began counting.

Bond pulled the pin from the grenade, holding down the safety lever.

“Three… Four..

Bond stepped from behind the massive steel pressure cooker. His arms were wide apart, the grenade in his left hand, pistol in the right.

“Five..

at was pretty near the truth. Apart from the grenade, the main charge would blow in about thirty seconds.

“You think I’m not afraid to die for my country?” Ourumov snapped.

Then he pulled the trigger and Bond saw his old friend topple over.

Without a second thought he dropped the grenade, leaped to his right onto the conveyor belt, his free hand smacking the start button on the metal upright.

He heard Ourumov yell at his men to hold their fire, and thought he saw him backing away, dragging Trevelyan’s body with him.

The conveyor belt started to move with a jerk and, now that he was away from the vats and cylinders filled with inflammable cleaning fluids, the Russian colonel fired two shots. The bullets smacked into the woodwork above the rubber skirt just as the belt carried Bond out of the processing room, angling upwards and moving fast

The grenade exploded with an ear shattering blast He thought he could hear screams, then, suddenly, he found himself being deposited onto a loading bay, outside the facility, only some fifty yards from the runway where the little Fiesler Storch was slowly taxiing, its tail towards him, ready to make the ninety-degree turn onto the threshold for take off.

The first explosion came from deep within the earth behind him, almost throwing him forward onto the unfriendly ground. Nobody was going to get out of the complex alive, that was a sure bet, so he began to run, heading towards the aircraft.

With bursting lungs, Bond reached it just as it started to turn and begin rolling. Behind him another explosion.

This time a blossom of flame, smoke and debris seemed to erupt from the ground. He leaped forward, catching the wing strut on the right hand side of the Storch. The pilot, concentrating on keeping the aircraft straight as it began to gather speed, glanced towards him and retarded the power, trying to abort the take off, as Bond reached out to the handle on the cockpit door.

The pilot, hitting the brakes to slow the plane, banged the rudder to the left, making the Storch yaw violently in an attempt to throw Bond from the wing strut, but when that did not work, he opened the door on his side and rolled from the cockpit, pushing the throttle to full power as he went.

With a push, Bond catapulted himself from the strut to the right hand seat, then leaned over to ease back on the throttle as he pulled himself across to get behind the controls.

The aircraft was turning in a wide circle, out of control, bumping along the rough ground, lurching and dipping first one wing and then the other, leaving Bond in no doubt that it would cartwheel any second.

He snatched back on the throttle, pressed the rudder pedals to gain control and, as another explosion fountained behind him, he swung the nose onto the runway, fishtailing violently until the Storch pointed down the centre line.

He was almost two thirds of the way down the runway and at a standstill, desperately looking around the cockpit to acclimatise himself with the controls when he felt the plane being rocked violently by another explosion.

Bond pulled down on the flaps lever and saw that the wide extensions to the trailing edge of the wings became fully extended. As they did so, he opened the throttle to full power and moved his feet back, easing off the brakes on the rudder pedals.

The Storch leaped forward, gathering speed, and eating up what was left of the runway. He felt the tail come up as the machine reached the end of the metalled section and bounced over the twenty odd yards of turf, heading straight for the long wide crevasse. Even with flaps fully extended, Bond knew he had not quite made enough speed to lift the Storch into the air. He eased back on the stick and felt the aircraft claw for its natural element. It rolled off the end of the solid ground, hung in midair for a second, before the nose dropped as she stalled and began to lose height, falling into the deep fissure.

He saw the rock face rising on both sides, great boulders and a stream less than two hundred feet below, getting closer with each second. Gently he eased off on the power, tilted the straining aircraft to the left, lifting the nose slightly so that he could gain enough airspeed for the plane’s wings to take over the weight.

It seemed an eternity before he could ease back, and feel the nose come right up, the whole machine stabilising.

Slowly he began to climb from the gorge and turn back over the facility which was now rubble and fire leaping from under the ground.

As he climbed away, Bond thought he saw the dam begin to split and crack, spilling water across the entire valley. It was no time to feel any sentiment. Alec Trevelyan had taken the same risks as anyone else in the Double-O Section. If not for a twist of fate, it could have been himself down there, shot through the head, his body being slowly covered by the water that was now crashing white from the lake.

Flying as low as he dared, Bond began to play tag with the mountains as he steadily made his way back to the area where in a matter of hours a submarine would take him back to England with Operation Cowslip successfully accomplished. On reflection, the one thing that pleased him was the fact that there had been no biological or chemical weapons actually in the complex. If there had been, the idea of blowing the place up was just about as foolish a concept as you could have. So, he presumed, M had already known there was little likelihood of deadly germs or toxic chemicals at the plant.

There was no way he could know that, in less than a decade, Colonel Ourumov would rise from the dead to become a thorn in his side and place him in even greater danger.

High Stakes The south of France, Bond often reflected, was not what it used to be. That coastline which runs from Saint-Tropez to the Italian border, just to the east of Menton, was packed to capacity during the season. The once leisurely Promenade des Anglais in Nice was even more leisurely, but today it was because of the steady, slow-moving stream of traffic - cars and an abundance of tour buses which made it more like Paris in the late afternoon.

Now, in the early summer of 1995, Bond detested the crowds, the traffic and the obvious growth of pollution, not only in the air, but also in the sea itself. There was trouble in what used to be paradise.

At this moment, however, he had risen above it all as he swung the old Aston Martin DB5 into a hairpin bend on the Grand Corniche, the highest of those roads which run parallel to the coast, in the foothills of the Alpes Maritimes. Up on this snake of a road which is perched on the cliff-like outcrop and sometimes even lances through tunnels blasted into the rock itself, you were removed from the snarl of traffic and crowds, yet afforded magnificent views of the sea and coastline.

He had almost forgotten what a joy it was to drive the Aston Martin which handled like the thoroughbred it was.

Just as much of a thoroughbred as the beautiful Caroline who sat beside him.

Caroline had not struck him as a girl who frightened easily, but he could feel her nervousness as he accelerated along the straight.

When she spoke it was in the cultured accent of a young woman who had been brought up in an atmosphere of relative privilege and had never felt guilty about it.

“James, do we really have to go quite so fast?” She glanced at him and then turned her attention quickly back to the road, for a large truck was rounding the bend taking up more of the Aston Martin’s road than it should.

Bond shifted down to third, and eased the car over so that the two vehicles passed safely with around an inch between them.

“Speed, my dear Caroline, is one of the few true aphrodisiacs left to mankind.” He gave her a wicked smile, the cruel mouth lifting in pleasure while his startlingly ice blue eyes twinkled.

Caroline swallowed. “I prefer soft lights, music and champagne,’ she said bluntly.

“That’s good as well.”

“James, I like a spirited drive as well as the next girl, but..

“Well, what’ve we got here?” His head turned as a bright yellow Ferrari 355 pulled alongside, its driver glancing across with a mocking smile.

The driver had a dark gypsy look about her, and the smile held a hint of challenge that Bond could not ignore as the Ferrari eased ahead of him.

“Who the blazes is that?” Caroline’s hand came up, touching Bond’s arm for a second. It could have been the start of a proprietary gesture, but she pulled the hand back, asking the question again.

“Haven’t a clue.” Bond did not even look at her. “But from here she has good lines, and she’s certainly shaking her tail at us.” He gently accelerated, bringing the car to within a few feet of the Ferrari, following her exact line as she increased speed on another sharp bend, forcing Bond to shift down and tap the brakes, losing a little distance, which he made up quickly on the straight stretch of road ahead. This time he pulled out, piled on the power and shot past the Italian car.

“James, stop this. You’re “Flirting with death?” He tapped the brakes again as they came to another long treacherous bend.

“You’re flirting with something,’ she began, then gasped as the Ferrari shot ahead, its driver not even turning her head, her eyes totally concentrating on the road.

Bond shifted down, floored the accelerator and then shifted up, now close behind the Ferrari. The girl driving the car in front swung out, in a desperate attempt to block the Aston Martin, but Bond, seeing his chance, pulled out and roared past, the edge of the road to his left barely a foot away from a long drop over the rocks.

“James, I said stop this,’ Caroline’s voice cracked with a note of command.

“Only a bit of fun. Where else could you get this kind of thrill, mixed with beautiful scenery and gorgeous weather?”

“James. I was sent out here to do your five-year evaluation. Do you want my report to M.

..” She cut off with an intake of breath as the Ferrari came alongside in an attempt to pass, but Bond was blocking her off, matching speed for speed as the two cars hurtled towards a long right hand bend.

He saw the flashing lights and heard the honking horn of the tour bus a fraction of a second before the Ferrari’s driver. For what seemed like a moment suspended in time, the big bus loomed huge in the Ferrari’s path.

Bond mouthed an expletive, pumping the brakes and shifting down, slowing the Aston Martin safely and just allowing the Ferrari to cross his nose with only a whisper between the car and the bus. “Ladies first” He tried to make it sound amusing, failing miserably.

“Stop this car!” Caroline snapped. “I mean it, James.

Stop this car at once!”

“Whatever you say, Ma’am.” The car slewed straight across the road, burning rubber as it came to a halt sideways on at a tourist overlook. “No problem, Caroline. I have no problem with female authority, and I hope you’ll put that in my evaluation.” His hand moved to the console, one finger flicking a switch.

Noiselessly a section below the dash slid back to reveal a chilling bottle of champagne and two glasses. “I usually keep a gun in there.’ He smiled into her light brown eyes. “But, as this is rather special..

“What on earth am I going to do with you, James?”

“Drink to my evaluation.” He had filled the two glasses, toasted her and took a sip from his, then put it back on the console, leaned forward and whispered, “Let’s make it a really thorough evaluation.” She gave a sigh, part despair and part desire as she lifted her head to receive his mouth on her own.

In the distance, the principality of Monaco shimmered in the afternoon heat, the harbour lined with several million dollars worth of yachts.

He noticed the distinctive yellow Ferrari as soon as he pulled the Aston Martin into the Casino’s parking area.

He was not even thinking about the race on the Grand Corniche, for Bond’s mind was on Caroline. Were those really tears he detected in her eyes as she held him close on saying goodbye at Nice airport?

He hoped that she was not going to be a clinging vine.

That was the trouble with some women, even in these days of liberation and equality. You still got clingers now and again, and one like Caroline would be awkward because she obviously had the ear of the recently appointed M. As far as Bond was concerned, the new M was not the greatest news of the year - even though the media had made a huge fuss. Bond was not a great fan of the media either, particularly now that the Secret Intelligence Service appeared to have ditched the word secret.

Then he saw the Ferrari and thought the night’s gambling might just be made a shade more amusing.

At the entrance to the Salles Pn’vees the blue jewled and immaculate duty manager acknowledged Bond by name, suggesting that the real action this evening was at the banquet out va - the baccarat table. Certainly there was a small knot of people watching the game, and Bond saw that the centre of attention was the attractive dark-haired young woman who had cheated death with him on the Grand Corniche that afternoon.

She wore a simple black dress and a diamond choker at her neck.

The diamonds could well be real, and she certainly looked like the proverbial million dollars. As she glanced up, he saw that the gypsy look he had caught from the glimpses of her in the car came from the jet black eyes and the smoothness of her hair which had a depth of texture to it that reminded him of a bolt of sheer silk. High cheek bones, a strong nose and a wide mouth made her very desirable.