Win, Lose or Die

by John Gardner

  He turned to see Clover Pennington, with a Wren on each side, coming from behind one of the Sea Harriers. All three girls carried automatic pistols.

  Stay cool, he thought. Stay very cool.

  ‘Hello, “Cat”.’ He smiled.

  17

  OPERATION SLEEPING BEAUTY

  One of the girls walked forward, reached behind him and removed the Browning.

  ‘Cuff him, while you’re at it,’ Clover told her. ‘Well, James, did Tawny Owl give you the go-ahead?’

  ‘Yes, how did you manage that?’ he asked, surprised that his voice appeared to be steady.

  ‘The silly old fool made a note of it and left it on his night table. It was so easy.’

  Bond felt the cuffs go on; the cold steel biting into his wrists. He was still puzzled by the silence. ‘How, Clover?’ he asked.

  ‘Bring him down to my cabin,’ she ordered the two Wrens, who shoved him like men, leading him to the bulkhead and down the companion-way, along the knee-touching passages to the Captain’s day cabin, where they roughly pushed him into a chair.

  Clover told the two girls to get on with their other duties. ‘I’ll call for you in about five minutes. I want this one nicely locked away in the cells.’ She went behind the Captain’s desk and sat, looking at him. ‘You see how easy it is for women to do the job of men?’ The smile was still attractive, without menace, or phoney evil. The snarl and leer were strictly for the movies. Clover looked like any other, nice, well-brought-up girl with a future.

  ‘There’s nobody around, that’s obvious.’ Bond’s mind hovered between thoughts of what he could do, and how in heaven’s name First Officer Pennington had managed to take over the ship. ‘There are over two thousand people on this ship.’ He tried a winning smile. ‘How do fourteen girls manage to take over, as you appear to have done?’

  ‘Two thousand and eighteen to be correct. Oh, and fifteen girls. We sprang Sarah Deeley. She’s a psycho, of course, but useful if it comes to any really distasteful jobs.’

  ‘How?’ he asked again.

  ‘Because it was very well planned, and we were in a prime position to pull it off. My girls had jobs everywhere – including complete access to the galleys.’

  ‘The food?’

  She nodded, ‘And drink. You should not really have got off the ship, James. I was a little cross about that. Didn’t you feel very thirsty this morning?’

  He remembered chug-a-lugging the orange juice on the base, and the unusual need to drink. ‘Ah.’

  Again the nice-girl smile, ‘Ah, indeed. Every morsel of food, every beverage, yesterday contained a substance that would make every man jack feel thirsty this morning. A craving thirst.’

  ‘And this morning?’

  ‘This morning you had nothing to drink before you went off to Rota. If you had taken a swig of coffee you would have become disoriented within twenty minutes, and dropped asleep within the half-hour. We called it Operation Sleeping Beauty. There were minor problems, of course – you were one of them – but my girls had ways of dealing with it all. Everyone, but you, is cosily tucked away. Fast asleep.’

  ‘How dangerous is this stuff?’

  ‘Stuff? Oh, the Mickey Finn we popped into the food and drink. Kick like a mule, James. Knocks people out cold. There’s a lot of that old stand-by, chloral hydrate, in it, but it’s been refined, the smell removed, also the after-effects are negative. The “Viper” put a lot of money into having the stuff made to the highest standards – Oh, and there’s little or no danger.’

  ‘The “Viper” sounds a right little charmer.’

  ‘He is, as it happens. Anyway, James, the whole company of this ship will be out cold for at least three days.’

  ‘And the object of the exercise?’

  ‘Money. Money to continue putting the world and society to rights.’

  ‘A lot of money?’

  ‘Two hundred billion for each of the VIPs . . .’

  Bond started to laugh, ‘Clover, is Bassam Baradj that naïve?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Doesn’t he realise that this isn’t the ultimate hostage situation?’

  ‘Why not? Three of the world’s most powerful politicians . . .’

  ‘Quite. You want money for them, and there’s no way you’ll get it. Sure, the countries concerned will probably chase all of you to the ends of the earth and back, but nobody’s going to pay that kind of money to get politicians back. Don’t you see that? It’ll be Et tu, Brute? time. Nights of the long knives time. The Russians will shrug their shoulders and the anti-glasnost team’ll be in. The Americans will do something stupid, like letting the Vice-President in for a while and then starting the circus again. The British? Well, Mrs T has her supporters, but . . . well, the Cabinet will hold little crisis meetings. Then they’ll just announce a new PM. America and us Brits never give in to hostage situations anyway, and a lot of powerful people will see it as a God-sent opportunity for a change in leadership.’ Bond thought for a moment and added, ‘But then, perhaps not.’

  She had gone a little pale, he thought. Well, he was only telling her the truth. ‘Eventually, death. Yes. We have a few aces up our sleeves. If the Governments don’t meet our requirements by 15.00 hours this afternoon, our time, we’ll show some power. If anyone tries an assault on the ship, Sarah will deal with the hostages. One at a time, of course. So far it’s between us and the Governments, but I don’t see that lasting if they miss our first deadline.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Three hours to go. I don’t know what’s planned, but we’ve all been told to stay off the main deck and the island.’

  ‘You can’t win. There’s no way. Clover, how in God’s name did someone like you get into a situation like this?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me like a cleric patronising a whore!’ she shouted. Then very quietly she said, ‘Because the world’s a rotten place, run by rotten people. Our kind of anarchy is positive. We want a fair and open society throughout the globe . . .’

  ‘You’re just like all those pipe dreamers, Clover. There’ll never be a fair, free and open society in this world. You see, people get in the way. Ideals are for idealists, and all idealists fall from grace. No ideal works, simply because human beings cannot cope with it. The man said it all – Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Lord Acton, wasn’t it? Said it all.’

  ‘You don’t think . . . ?’ she began. ‘No. No, you’re trying the old hostage rapport trick. Time for you to go quietly on your way, James.’ Even before she had said it, there was an urgent knocking at the door. She called out and one of the Leading Wrens, who had taken him on the main deck, came in. She was a tall, angular blonde, but with the unfortunate fire and fervour of belief in her eyes. ‘All three countries have turned us down, Ma’am. “Viper” says everyone is to stay below at 15.00 hours. He thinks that by going public we’ll force their hands.’

  Clover nodded, then cocked her head towards Bond. ‘You can take him down to the cells. Lock him up tight.’

  ‘I don’t have to keep the bracelets on, do I, Clover? I mean the cells are pretty secure.’

  She gave it a moment’s thought. ‘Make sure he’s banged up tightly. Take one of the other girls down with you – armed. The cuffs can go.’

  Bond went quietly. He knew his only hope would be to get up onto the main deck, and, with luck, get off in the first Sea Harrier which was on the ski-ramp, juiced up and heavy with weaponry. When in this kind of situation, go along with them. The entire business was crazy anyhow, for he fully believed all that BAST had done was to present an unexpected, political bonus to those who opposed Gorbachev, Thatcher and Bush.

  Another Wren joined them, cradling an H & K MP5 SD3, with which she prodded Bond. He could not but admire the organisation. Baradj might have chosen a stupid, negative target, but the operation and its methods had been excellent.

  The cells were a little cluster of six, barred cubicles, deep within the ship. In a world of technology t
hey were a tad old-fashioned. The barred doors slid back by hand and they were equipped with straightforward deadlocks. Nobody else occupied the cells and they just pushed him into the first one available.

  ‘What about the handcuffs?’ he asked, as the Leading Wren seemed about to lock him up.

  ‘Oh, yes. Frisk him, Daphne.’ The blonde with the feverish eyes had that tough, rather butch manner that you often found in service women. It did not mean that they were different from other females, but it came with the job. Soft girls hardened under military discipline.

  Daphne frisked him. Very thoroughly, Bond thought, for she lingered around his crotch. A genuine FCP, he said to himself.

  Finally they unlocked the cuffs, slid the bars in place and locked him away.

  ‘Someone’ll have to bring you food, I suppose,’ the blonde said, her voice irritated at the thought. ‘Don’t know how long that’ll be, we’re pretty heavily stretched.’

  ‘I can wait,’ Bond said politely, knowing that whatever they brought him would be well laced with their new concoction of basic chloral hydrate.

  Alone now, he had decisions to make. This time he really was on his own. Up the proverbial creek without a paddle. No hidden weapons; nothing spectacular from Q Branch. Just himself, his skills, and the absolute necessity to get away.

  About one hundred miles to the north-west of Rota, the freighter Estado Novo had stopped her engines, and the sides of the fake crate were being lowered to display the stolen Sea Harrier.

  Felipe Pantano fussed around. There was a lot of arm-waving, and a good deal of shouting and talking, as he supervised the arming and refuelling of the jet. He was being given his chance. Today he would see action for BAST and the thought never occurred to him that he just might not get back to the freighter alive. After all, the whole thing was fool-proof.

  Nobody on any of the other ships from the Task Force would challenge a Royal Navy Sea Harrier, and by the time he had done his work, he would be streaking back to the Estado Novo with the throttle fully open. It was certainly a great day for him. The one word message, Dispatch, which had come in clearly by radio, had changed the entire pattern of his life.

  To put it simply, Felipe Pantano was an excited man.

  In Gibraltar, Baradj had been loath to send the Dispatch signal to the Estado Novo, but the American State Department, the British Foreign Office and the Kremlin had left him no alternative.

  Fools, he thought, they do not know what they’re dealing with. So he sent the signal – a telephone call to London, as before, another telephone call from his people in London to the registered owners of the ship in Oporto, and the signal sent buried in a longer message, direct from the owners.

  Altogether, Baradj was pleased with the way in which he had organised the messages, by short ’phone calls from himself, to longer calls from his London people, who used pay ’phones and stolen credit cards – recently stolen: which meant purloined less than an hour before the calls went out. The communications were untraceable, which, once more, put him in the clear.

  Baradj sat in his room at The Rock Hotel, just five minutes or so from the famous monkeys which inhabited their own territory of the Rock and were all known by name to their keepers. All of the monkeys had names, and were identifiable. Baradj found it a strange, and unnatural trait in the British that they allowed one pair of them to be called Charles and Di, and another twosome, Andy and Fergie. This was almost treason to the British Royal Family, Baradj considered. He had a great love of the British Royal Family – which meant that Baradj would really have liked to have been born into a different kind of background. It also meant that he was trying to buy himself into the aristocracy: via terrorist activities.

  Well, he thought, the balloon would go up soon enough. They would see, in less than two hours now, that they weren’t playing with any old terrorist outfit. Oh, he thought, the books are correct: it is very lonely at the top of the chain of command. One of his great troubles at this moment was that he had nobody to talk to. He had, in fact, been reduced to making quick, almost nonsensical calls to other members of the organisation uninvolved in the present operation.

  Finally, Baradj decided to call in his last lieutenant, Ali Al Adwan whom he had left quietly in Rome. The call was to be his undoing, for the monitors in the whole area of Spanish coastal waters, had, as the jargon would say, unwaxed their ears: which meant they were listening out with extreme diligence.

  ‘Pronto,’ Adwan answered the telephone in his Rome hotel.

  ‘Health depends on strength,’ said Bassam Baradj.

  They picked up Ali Al Adwan an hour later outside the hotel, on his way to the airport.

  It was decided, at very high level, to let Baradj remain as a sleeping dog. After all, they could monitor his telephone calls, and even run complete surveillance on him.

  James Bond had decided his only chance was to make a move when they brought his food. If he ate or drank anything it would be curtains, or at least some heavy gauze that would leave him junked out for a few days.

  It was going to be very dangerous, for they would never think of sending a girl down on her own. There would be a guard, and he would have to deal with the situation on the hoof. Time ticked away: half an hour; an hour. Then, at 14.30, he heard the lock on the outer door click open.

  ‘Room Service.’ It was the unpleasant voice of Donald Speaker, who, a second later, appeared in front of the bars, a tray in one hand, keys and a Browning 9mm in the other. Bond thought it was probably his own Browning. On the tray was a plate of cold cuts and salad, with a large mug of steaming coffee next to it.

  ‘I might have known you’d turn coat.’

  ‘Oh, I had it turned a long time ago, James Bond. Money isn’t everything, but it helps the world go round. I’m not a political traitor: just avaricious.’ He skilfully operated the key in the lock and Bond relaxed, trying to work out the best, and safest, move.

  ‘Anyway,’ Speaker continued, ‘you can’t expect these girls to do it all. Girls can’t do a man’s job.’ He slid back the barred entrance and stood in the opening, the tray held by his left hand and balanced on his right wrist, the Browning held tightly and pointing directly at Bond, a mite too steadily for comfort. ‘Just step right back against the wall. Move fast if you like. It would be a great pleasure to kill you.’

  ‘I’ll do it slowly and correctly,’ Bond smiled. ‘I’m not quite ready for the chop yet.’ He took one short step backwards, then made his move. Swivelling to his right, out of the Browning’s deadly eye, he turned and brought his left leg up in a shattering kick at the tray.

  His aim was slightly off, but the effect was what he wanted for the kick lifted the tray at almost the correct point, bringing the steaming mug of coffee up in a scalding spray, straight over Speaker’s face.

  The interrogator’s reaction was one of the most natural things Bond had ever seen. First, he dropped both tray and gun; second his hands flew up to his face; third, and concurrent with the first two, Speaker screamed – loudly and painfully.

  Bond stepped in, grabbing at the Browning, twisting as he did so, aiming a heavy chop with the gun butt at the base of Speaker’s skull.

  ‘Coffee,’ Bond whispered to himself, ‘can instantly damage your health.’ He was outside, sliding the gate closed, locking it and removing the keys.

  He went through the outer door with care. There was nobody in the passageway, so he locked the door, and moved along the passage until he came to the first companion-way which he went up at speed. He had one great advantage over the Wrens: one of the first things any officer does when reporting aboard a new ship is to make certain he knows the lay-out, and the best and quickest route to follow between any two points. Bond had spent almost an entire day learning the passages, bulkheads, companionways and catwalks of Invincible. He knew the way to the nearest heads which had ports above sea level, and he made this his first stop, unscrewing the lugs on one of the ports and hurling the key to the cells far out into the s
ea.

  He moved as quickly as possible, taking great pains, stopping from time to time to listen for any sign of life. Wrens, he thought, should normally be identifiable at distance, but Clover Pennington’s Wrens had obviously been subjected to special training. There were also only fifteen of them, and they would have to be well spread out across the ship.

  He was making his way to the Crew Room in the for’ard part of the island, at main deck level. He moved by the fastest means, by-passing the more obvious places where Clover would have people posted. It was now 14.45, so, with luck, they would all be below the main deck and off the island, as they had been instructed.

  It was as though the entire ship was deserted, for he saw nobody in his journey, and it was only when he got to the Crew Room that he realised Clover had left one girl on deck; though, he figured, she would have to get below on the dot of three. The door to the main deck was open, and the girl had her back towards him. It was the tall, tough blonde Leading Wren who had taken him to the cells, and it was obviously her turn with the H & K MP5 SD3. She held it as though it was her child, which was a bad sign with terrorists. Women of this persuasion were taught to regard their personal weapon as their child: and that was not just terrorism according to the top people’s espionage novelist. It was for real.

  He looked around the Crew Room and finally found a G-suit and helmet which were roughly his size. Two-fifty in the afternoon. From the bulkhead door he could still see the Leading Wren, and behind her the Sea Harriers, the first of the four aircraft right on the ski-ramp, with one machine behind it, and a pair of others parked abreast. They were all obviously ready and armed, for the ribbons hung from the Sidewinders, slung under the wings.

  Standing to one side of the bulkhead, his back to the deck, Bond put up the visor of his helmet and whistled loudly.

  There was movement from the deck, so the Leading Wren had heard and been alerted. He whistled, shrilly again, and heard the answering footsteps as she crossed towards the Crew Room door. The footsteps stopped, and he could imagine that she was standing, uncertain, the H & K tucked into her hip and the safety off.