by John Gardner
A technician, sitting at the far monitor, all but shouted, "Retro-rockets firing." It was time for Natalya to smile, but Bond kept his eyes on Boris who now resumed clicking the pen. Three - the pen was armed. A further three times, disarming the pen.
Boris leaped across to the technician: hammering at the keyboard with his right hand. "She's at ninety-seven miles and falling. I can't regain control."
"What the hell's going on?" Trevelyan was up on his feet and moving towards Boris and the technician who looked bewildered.
"We'll have re-entry in thirteen minutes,' as he reached forward to set a re-entry clock. The timer flashed on in brilliant red digitised figures, and the Time to Target now read, Aborted. Time To Re-entry: 13:24.
In the stunned silence, Natalya spoke. "It's going to burn up somewhere over the Atlantic."
"You little bitch." Boris was still trying to regain control from the technician's keyboard. He moved his head up to speak with Trevelyan. "She's changed the access codes." As he spoke, Trevelyan, his face a rage, pulled his gun and stuck it in Boris' ear.
Natalya giggled. "Go ahead, Janus. Shoot him, he means nothing to me.
Bond gave her a look of pleasure and muttered, "Standard operating procedure."
"I can break her codes, move that damned gun away, Alec.' Boris flapped at the pistol as though it were an insect, then turned back to the technician. "Load the guidance sub-routines. Now.
Quickly." Then he started playing with the pen again.
Click-click Click -click Then a whole series of clicks so that Bond lost count, just as Trevelyan took his pistol from Boris' ear and turned it onto Natalya. "Tell him. You hear me, girl? Tell him." Boris was out of control, whirling and screaming at Natalya, "Give me those codes. Natalya, GIVE ME THE CODES." Bond had no idea of the status of the pen that the crazy little computer specialist was waving in Natalya's face. He lashed out with one arm, sending Trevelyan's gun up and out of the man's hand. He then brought his foot up in a kick boxer's stance, kicking Boris' wrist and sending the pen arcing into the air. For a precious second it seemed to remain stationary in mid air, then dropped, exploding just as it hit the spreading pool of fuel.
The explosion and sudden leap of fire around them made hands and arms come up: all trying to cover their eyes from the sheet of flame which shot up the stairs and wall back to its original source.
The first fuel tank exploded. As it did so, Bond grabbed Natalya by the arm and pulled her towards the elevator on their left. As he banged the door closed, they both almost felt the thud of bullets hitting the sliding doors.
"Can he really break your codes?" Bond asked. He was aware of the urgency in his own voice.
"It's possible,' she said almost casually.
"Then we'll have to destroy the transmitter." His head tilted up, watching the numbers rise. He could only presume this would take them right to the top of the damned thing.
"That would be natural." She lifted one eyebrow. "By the way, thank you, I'm fine."
"Good." The elevator stopped at the base of the catwalk which led to the transmitter cradle they had seen as the whole structure rose from the lake. An armed guard turned towards the opening doors and saw the woman slumped on the floor. He immediately ran in to her, dropping his machine pistol on the way in his hurry to help her. As he began to kneel down beside the unconscious body, Bond dropped from the roof, where he had lodged himself, using shoulders and feet, like a climber in a chimney rock formation.
First his feet hit the guard's back, then he chopped viciously at the man's neck which gave off a horrible cracking sound as he fell, spread-eagled, to the floor.
Natalya was on her feet again as Bond removed the guard's pistol and threw it to her. He picked up the machine pistol, and, as he did so, they both heard the rumbling of explosions from far below.
"You know how to use one of these?" Looking at the gun he had handed to Natalya.
She nodded, checking the slide movement, ejecting the magazine and making sure it was full. "Yes,' she said.
"Good. Just keep out of sight and get off the dish. I'm going to scupper that antenna. That will do the trick, won't it?"
"Just get up there to the maintenance hatch. There's probably a simple chain device which works the mechanism to turn the antenna. The best thing for you to do is remove all the fuses from the maintenance room. Go. Go now.
Quickly." From below, more explosions rattled the dish and the superstructure as Bond kissed her on the cheek and started the long climb up to the maintenance room high above the antenna.
The climb was daunting, and by the time Bond reached halfway, he could make out the structures more clearly.
When he was some forty feet up, he glanced down and saw Natalya making a dash up to the edge of the dish, climbing over the latticework to the ground and running into the protection of the jungle.
Originally he had intended to stop at the catwalk which crossed the triangle some ten feet above the big metal maintenance room which, in turn, was set directly above the housing from which the long icicle of the antenna reached down, ending around ten feet from the dish. Now he saw that there was another large chamber, high above, set into the very apex of the triangle. Cables and wires sprouted downwards from this room, and he began to get the whole picture of how the antenna was operated.
The wires and cables, leading from the top of the triangle, undoubtedly had a part to play in the way the great silver finger was moved. Some went directly down, through the maintenance chamber and from there into what could only be the true mechanism for repositioning the antenna, yet there seemed to be another set of thicker cables.
These went over a series of pulleys and wheels.
He was thirty feet from the top of the structure when he saw that these wires ran to the far side of the dish and supported a cable car which could be taken from dish level up to the catwalk.
He cursed, wishing he had known about the cable car for it would have cut precious minutes off his journey.
From far below, he still caught the sound of occasional explosions coming from deep within the earth beyond the dish.
In the control complex, the fuel tanks were still exploding.
sending balls of fire up to the roof above the top section.
Guards raced back and forth with CO2 extinguishers, but nobody was in doubt that the roof was starting to weaken.
Tiles and pieces of insulation had already begun to fall, and Trevelyan's men kept their eyes on this danger point, as though trying to divine the moment when they would have to give up and evacuate the complex.
The only person who seemed oblivious to the dangers was Boris who sat at his keyboard, focused wholly on the job of regaining control over the satellite.
Trevelyan stood over him, watching his every move as the younger man worked, almost feverishly, at the programme.
"How long's it going to take?" Trevelyan was looking around and starting to take in the possible hopelessness of the situation.
Boris snapped back that it was nearly done. "Two minutes three at the most" Trevelyan suddenly frowned, remembering Bond who could blow out the all important antenna if he had a mind to. If he knew Q, and if Bond still had explosives with him, he might find a way of overriding the electronic remotes. He turned to the guard who was standing beside him. "Watch him,' he pointed to Boris. "If he moves, shoot him.
He was away and running towards the exit, pushing firefighters out of the way, heading for the cable car that would take him as far as the catwalk above the maintenance room.
Within a couple of minutes he was in the little cage and beginning his slow ascent up the structure.
In front of Boris the countdown clock read Time to Re-entry: 09:41.
As Trevelyan began the journey to the catwalk, so Bond had reached the chamber at the top of the framework.
It had been fashioned into a square, metal room, and Bond was forced to move carefully between two different sets of machinery. On one side, he could see, ther
e was a series of large, cogged wheels around which cables ran out and downwards. As he entered, the wheels began to move, the mechanism starting up. Someone was in the cable car, which meant he had little time left.
Immediately beside the door was a great oblong structure which pulsed with sound. There seemed to be no way into it, but it did not take much imagination for Bond to realise that this was the generator and probably the first stage in controlling the antenna.
During the climb, he had already thought of trying to use the last of Q's mines. These were strictly remote controlled units, but there was a way he could set them on a timer. His real problem was that the timer could only be set to detonate the mine with a five-minute delay.
He pulled the black circular object from his pouch, together with a small screwdriver, and began to release the screws on the underside.
He worked calmly. When dealing with explosives he knew there were inherent dangers in rushing things.
Halfway through the process, the cable car mechanism stopped with a lurch. Whoever was in the car had already reached the catwalk.
Inside the mine, he removed the remote timer- a small microchip the size of his thumbnail. Below it was a small dial with a moving pointer like the large hand on a watch.
Using the screwdriver he carefully turned the pointer, swinging it around to its furthest setting. The mechanism began to click as the pointer slowly moved backwards.
Placing the mine below the generator, he swung himself out of the room, preparing to make the climb down to the catwalk.
He had descended three rungs when two bullets whined past him. 1n one movement, Bond slid the machine pistol from his shoulder and looked down.
Trevelyan stood in the middle of the catwalk, his right hand holding an automatic pistol, raised, ready to take another shot.
Turning to the inside of the structure, Bond fired a fast, unaimed burst in Trevelyan's direction. The shots went wide, but Trevelyan ducked, throwing himself to the end of the catwalk nearest the small cage which was the cable car.
Bond scrambled down and fired another burst He could see sparks shooting off the metal, but his target had disappeared. The catwalk was now only around twelve feet below him. He hesitated for a second, which almost cost him his life, for two more shots came from the direction of the cable car, whanging against the metal near his head.
Swinging inside the triangular lines and girders, Bond pushed off and dropped to the catwalk which began to sway crazily as he landed, firing a long burst into the cable car.
It took a second for him to realise that the car was empty, and he turned just in time to see that Trevelyan had somehow worked his way to the other side of the catwalk, and so positioned himself behind him.
The man who was Janus gave a smile of pleasure as he raised the automatic.
"Goodbye, James,' he mouthed, and squeezed the trigger. The firing pin came down with a click that Bond seemed to hear as though it were amplified in an echo chamber. Trevelyan shouted an oath and flung the empty pistol straight at Bond who had already raised his weapon, bringing it to bear.
The pistol grazed the side of his head, knocking him to one side, just as he fired. The burst went wide. It also ended with a loud click and the mechanism of the gun locked. He was also out of ammunition.
Slightly dizzy from the blow, he barely had time to dodge as Trevelyan rushed him. He side-stepped and brought his fist up, aiming at his one-time friend's jaw.
The blow connected with the side of Trevelyan's head and sent him sprawling and milling over the catwalk.
Bond looked down, seeing that it was a ten-foot drop to the ~op of the maintenance room below. This time he did not hesitate, but vaulted over the catwalk, landing heavily on the roof.
He scrambled to one side, and let himself down to the entrance.
As he climbed in, there was a whining sound and the whir of an electric motor. Someone was repositioning the antenna.
Down under the earth, Boris was making wild war whoops, almost dancing around, shouting, "I've done it. Yes. I am invincible!" as he typed the final command SEND COMMAND: ABORT RE-ENTRY.
The countdown clock read Re-entry: 07:45.
Then the screen cleared and scrolled out the message.
STAND BY: ANTENNA REPOSITIONING.
The sound Bond heard in the maintenance room was that of the mechanism beginning to operate and reset the coordinates, swinging the long, tapering spike of the antenna to the correct point to regain control of the satellite. He looked around, searching for a fuse box of some kind, but all the equipment in the maintenance chamber was sealed: a large grey metal box took up most of the space, and cables originating from the mechanism in the apex of the structure were encased in protective plastic covers.
As he stood, searching for a way to deal with the electronics, a heavy thud shook the whole room, leaving him in no doubt that Trevelyan had also leaped down from the catwalk.
He expected the mine to detonate at any minute now, but that could fail and he still wanted to make certain the antenna did not aim itself correctly. Outside, he looked down and dropped, landing on the housing that he knew contained the final stage of the mechanism.
There was a hatch into this great circular housing, and he was quickly inside, knowing that Trevelyan was at his heels.
There was little room, for a huge wheel like that of some great clock took up the bulk of the space. But he spotted two other things immediately - a long, oblong fuse box and a telescopic ladder, attached to the wall and directly above a steel trapdoor. This, he was sure, would be the way the engineers were able to get right down to the antenna. He also knew that from this point to the dish itself there were some eighty or ninety feet.
As his mind raced, so he unscrewed the butterfly bolts on the fuse box, flipped it open and began smashing the fuses out in groups of five and six at a time until they were all gone and the whir of machinery stopped.
Trevelyan was close now, he could almost smell the man, just as he could smell his own fear. Leaping towards the telescopic ladder, he unclipped the safety bolts to allow it to fall.
As Trevelyan appeared in the hatchway, so Bond stamped hard on the trapdoor, his hands on the bottom rung of the ladder. The trapdoor gave way and the ladder uncoiled, ratchetting down through some forty feet and coming to a sickening halt at its fullest extension only a few feet above the top of the antenna.
He thought his arms were about to be ripped from their sockets, but he held on grimly, the ladder swaying and creaking above him as Trevelyan's face appeared in the trapdoor.
"Need some help getting down, James?" he shouted.
"I'll be with you in a minute." Easing himself through the opening, Trevelyan began to make a slow descent as Bond attempted uselessly to pull himself back up the ladder.
Natalya moved into the jungle following the noise she had just heard. She had no desire to look at what she had seen from the edge of the thick trees and fronds - James struggling at the end of a long swinging ladder, some forty feet from the bottom of the dish and directly above the antenna. She moved slowly towards the noise, and came to a halt as she reached a man-made clearing. In the middle of this glade stood a helicopter gunship, its rotors gently idling.
Below ground, in the control complex, Boris stared unbelieving at the screen which now read out, ANTENNA MALFUNCTION. He began to scream and stamp, yelling unintelligible obscenities.
Above Bond, the ladder was swaying as Trevelyan came down, rung by rung. Two rungs above Bond, he took one hand from the ladder and pulled a small throat microphone from inside his shirt, speaking into it rapidly.
In the jungle clearing, Natalya saw the pilot alone in the cockpit. The helicopter gunship began to move, its engine spooling up, ready to lift off. Taking a deep breath, she ran towards the rear door of the machine.
"Now, James, it's time for our last goodbye, I think." Trevelyan stepped down to the rung directly above Bond and raised his booted foot to bring it down on Bond's hand. As he
did so, the rung gave way with a sharp crack.
He felt Trevelyan's body brush against his as he dropped. In a reflex, he grabbed with one hand and caught Trevelyan's left wrist
The man looked up at him, sweat and terror on his face.
"James,' he called, his eyes pleading. "Haul me up. For heaven's sake ... for old times' sake, haul me up."
"Go to hell!" Bond shouted and released Trevelyan who hit the antenna and, screaming, dropped all the way down to the dish.
At the same moment the apex of the triangle blew out.
The mine had detonated, and the entire structure swayed, pieces of metal and wiring beginning to detach themselves and fall.
Over the noise, Bond thought he could hear a helicopter. Hanging precariously, he saw the gunship, heading straight for him, and as it hovered as near as was feasible, his eyes widened.
The pilot was manoeuvring the gunship closer and closer. Behind him, Natalya stood with her pistol pushed into the side of the terrified man's head. He was acting under her instructions, which, because of the skeletal edifice they were approaching, were not always practical.
After a minute's jigging from side to side, he brought the craft's port landing skid to a point just in front and below where Bond hung.
It was his only chance, for everything appeared to be collapsing around him. He swung himself out and grabbed hold of the skid at the moment the chopper backed off and started to move away.
In the centre of the dish, Trevelyan regained consciousness. His eyes opened and the pain that swept over him, combined with the blood in his mouth, told him that he was near death.
He heard the noises coming from above, cracks, creaks, the clank of falling metal. Looking up, the last thing he saw was the long silver spike that was the antenna detach itself and come hurtling down to impale him.
In the control complex, Boris still raved, but realised that most of the guards were either dead or had disappeared. He seemed to be the only one left alive, and he rushed up to the middle gallery. As he reached the mainframe room, so the liquid coolants suddenly exploded, sending a freezing white mist flying through the shuttered doors.
