Colonel Sun

by Robert Markham

  ‘None of the scholars know why Theseus took off from Naxos in so much hurry. The Vrakonisiots do. Their king had heard about Theseus slaying the Minotaur and so he sent some men to him and they begged him to come over and fight a dragon who was burning up their island with the flames of its breath. So Theseus left Ariadne sleeping and went over to Vrakonisi with the messengers. He thought he'd be back very soon.

  ‘But the dragon was dangerous because he could hurt you when you couldn't see him. He'd hide himself behind the mountain and breathe fire at you over it. Theseus waited for him to get started and then swam around the island and took the dragon from the rear and pulled him into the sea. And the water boiled and the steam rose so high in the air that the gods on Mount Olympus saw it and wondered what it was. At last the dragon was drowned and sank to the bottom of the sea. When Theseus got to shore he found that the boiling waves had melted so much that only a tenth part of the island was left, but the king and his family and his palace had survived and his daughters took care of Theseus while he recovered from his burns. That was a big job, and when he got back to Naxos and looked for Ariadne she'd gone. He'd been too brave for his own good.

  ‘They'll tell you that that's just a mythical story of what happened when the island was formed as it is today. A volcano was erupting and pouring down burning lava and at last it exploded and the sea rushed in. But I'd as soon believe in the dragon. Vrakonisi – they'll tell you it means just “rocky island”, not exciting. But that ought to be Vrakhonisi, with the letter khi. What it must really be is Thrakonisi. Dragon Island.’

  ‘And now there's a dragon round the place again,’ said Bond flatly. ‘Only this time it's a Chinese dragon.’

  Litsas reappeared at that moment and the words caught in his ear. He checked in his stride.

  ‘There's Chinese handwriting over every part of this business.’ Bond offered cigarettes. ‘The scale of the disregard for the unwritten rules of peacetime intelligence work, above all the recklessness. None of the smaller Powers who might want to resist Russian influence in this part of the Mediterranean or the Near East – Turkey, for instance – would or could risk a fraction of what these people have done. But before we go on theorizing, let's have a dose of fact. Ariadne's told us the location of this event. What we need to know now is what it is.’

  ‘All right. This is it.’ Ariadne drew her legs up on to the bench and clasped her knees.

  ‘A secret meeting has been arranged between a top Russian official – you're sure to know his name – and representatives of some countries around here and in North Africa. High-up representatives; I heard that Nasser intended to come himself, but in the end he had to appoint a substitute. All the invitees accepted the Russian invitation at last, but a snag happened when they tried to fix on a place to hold the meeting. Russia would have been the obvious one, but two of the delegates got very reactionary and said they wouldn't go there. And then they all started fighting about prestige. So they finally settled on some halfway spot on neutral ground – for some reason Greece wasn't invited. The Turks must have been behind that. Russia should have stopped them.’

  Ariadne's momentary but real indignation spoke of the undying nationalism that sits in the heart of every Greek, even the most sophisticated. Litsas responded at once, nodded in sympathy, but Bond failed to notice. His thoughts were racing ahead, outlining the consequences of what Ariadne was saying and fitting this picture into the information he already had. What looked up at him was frightening.

  ‘So,’ the girl went on, ‘an island seemed just ideal – out of the way, but enough tourists and people around so that a lot of visitors suddenly coming wouldn't be noticeable. Vrakonisi was chosen because at one end of it there's a big house on a kind of rock that you can only get to by water.’

  ‘I know the place you mean,’ Litsas put in. ‘That was clever of them. It'd be damned difficult to take them by surprise there. And that's what the enemy must want to do.’

  Bond's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. ‘Let's consider his strategy,’ he said.

  ‘Over a glass of ouzo, please, James.’ Litsas got up from the table and went over to the ice-box on the port side of the companion-way. ‘In Greece you consider nothing unless with some stimulating drink, and it's the wrong time for coffee. We modern Hellenes must help our poor brains with something.’

  From a tall wicker-covered flagon he poured three stiff drinks on to chunks of ice and handed them out.

  ‘This stuff is from the barrel – much better than the bottled. Stronger and not so sweet.’

  Bond sipped and agreed. It had the bland fieriness he looked for in all short drinks: cool and dry in the mouth, warmly powerful in the belly. He pondered for another few moments.

  ‘The intention,’ he said slowly, ‘is to break up the conference by violence, killing as many people as possible in the process, and making the whole thing as public as possible. After that, the plan would have been to make it look as if my chief and I had done the job, and put us in no position to say we hadn't. Our bodies would be found with the deadly weapons in our hands. No doubt we'd have papers on us “proving” we were acting under orders. The whole affair would stink to high heaven of being fixed, of course, and nobody who understands the British would be taken in, but that's a long way from being everybody. Enough people would believe it, or go on as if they believed it, for British influence hereabouts – which is still not negligible – to vanish overnight, British prestige to be ruined everywhere, rioting to break out, burnings, shootings and worse … Gordienko wasn't fooling when he talked about a risk of war. I think he was making even more sense than he probably knew.’

  ‘One moment, James,’ Ariadne leaned forward earnestly. ‘I agree with all this, but I still don't see why you're so sure that the Chinese must be responsible. The Americans are quite capable of this sort of thing. Consider their behaviour about Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam; they don't hesitate to –’

  Bond started to speak, but Litsas held up his hand. ‘Let me reply, James. Listen, young lady. At Pierce College in Athens the Americans educated you, taught you English, explained to you their way of life. Were you such a bad and lazy student that you're forgetting all that? Can you see no difference between fighting aggressive Communists and this caper, killing chaps in the public streets of a friendly and peaceful nation, taking a Security chief from England completely openly? Even the worst men in Washington would not advise that. I beg you, Ariadne, forget your Leninist Institute and start to think!’

  ‘And,’ said Bond, ‘if they're still telling you there that the United States is world enemy number one they need to catch up on their studies. The Kremlin knows perfectly well that the main threat isn't the West any more, but the East. Surely that's not news to you?’

  Ariadne had flushed. She gazed at Bond and said, still with a touch of defiance, ‘Maybe. You could be right. I don't know.’ Then she turned to Litsas and went on as before: ‘But don't tell me about aggressive Communists. That's straight out of the … the Lyndon Johnson Institute!’

  Bond chuckled. Litsas roared with laughter and slapped Ariadne on the thigh. The three shared a moment of total understanding and pure uplifting gaiety. It was gone in a flash. Bond sipped ouzo and took up his exposition.

  ‘What really frightens me,’ he said quietly, ‘is the thought that this thing is so violent, so ruthless, so … so crazy, that it might easily not be a one-shot deal, but the first step in something on an even more ambitious scale. Let's consider what might conceivably happen, how bad it could be. Stage one: Britain fatally damaged, Russia's prestige weakened – so she couldn't even protect the delegates at a conference she'd convened, couldn't she, and what about the gross infringement of Greek territoriality? The eastern Mediterranean laid open for Chinese penetration. Stage two: the whole Arab world and/or Africa. I'll leave it to you to wonder what Stage three might be.’

  Nobody spoke. The Altair moved peacefully and purposefully on its way.

  Litsas
fetched fresh drinks.

  ‘That could be the big plan,’ he said, sitting down again. ‘But now the details. What might be the Chink plan of attack? Sea or land? Or air, perhaps? A few bombs would make plenty of casualties.’

  ‘Air I rather …’ Bond shook his head. ‘They'd have to crash the aircraft somewhere near by, and crashes are tricky things to rig. There's the question of getting the pilot away – oh, they wouldn't think twice about his being killed, but he would. If they put the machine down on land they risk burning everything beyond recognition. In the water you're in even greater danger of losing the lot. I suppose you could try a duplication, one aeroplane for the assault and a twin for the crash, but that way you'd more than double your risks. No, for the time being I think we can rule out the air. Now, land. How well do you know the place, Niko?’

  Litsas screwed up his face and sighed. ‘I'm trying to remember … That end of the island's pretty wild. Parts of it were never cleared for cultivating. Big blocks of stone and some dense bush. Difficult to move about, but first-class cover. If you knew your business you could hide a platoon in there.’

  ‘In a different way that isn't very promising either,’ said Bond. ‘You'd need something a good deal heavier than small arms to make any impression on a house. And any sort of artillery would take some installing, if the going's as rough as you say.’

  ‘One of those anti-tank things – what are they called, bazookas?’

  Bond shook his head again. ‘I doubt it. They couldn't do much more to a tank than blow its track off. I suppose – if you could get at a window … But you'd have to get up bloody close. Of course, atomics would solve everything and to spare, though you still have a delivery problem. On the whole I think the sea's the most likely. Well, that's as far as we can go now. All we can do is get there.’

  Bond's voice and manner had turned suddenly cold, so much so that Ariadne glanced at him in concern. In fact he had gone cold inside at the mental picture, hideously clear, of a thirty-knot cabin cruiser with a stolen tactical atomic device on board slipping round the corner of the island, throwing its insanely destructive punch and making off at full speed for the horizon and a rendezvous. God, that would rock the world all right!

  To conceal his agitation from the others he got to his feet and went to the saloon doorway, unconsciously allowing for the motion of the ship as he did so. By imperceptible degrees the weather had been freshening. Whitecaps were beginning to break up the surface of the dark water. The lights of a village clustered at the shore and wound away upwards and to one side. The day had not yet quite gone. Against the faint luminosity of the sky the columns of a ruined temple could be made out, an image of defiant integrity and loneliness that quietened Bond's fears. Its makers could have had no notion of how long even these remnants would outlast them and their god, but had they known they would have gone on building just the same. That was the only way to behave: to see to the doing of what had to be done.

  Litsas joined him. ‘We should get busy. I suggest an early supper, because the wind and sea are getting up.’

  He glanced at the sky, moved a couple of yards for'ard and looked over the cabin-top out to the fading horizon. ‘It'll be Force 5 or 6 in a couple of hours and the old Altair does roll a bit. She only draws just over five feet – that's the bad thing with karavóskaro hulls. Anyway, eating's better if your plate stays still. Afterwards an early bedtime; for you two, that is. Yanni and I will split the watches. We'll be off Vrakonisi about six. I'll check the course and the weather reports and then we'll see what's in the larder.’

  When they were alone on the narrow strip of deck, Ariadne turned and clung to Bond. Her lips tasted faintly of salt.

  As he closed his eyes and kissed her more deeply, he recognized the old feeling of surrender to another person, as always with the illusion of permanence, the seeming certainty that this, here, now, was the end of the torturing quest for fulfilment. But knowing that the illusion was an illusion, the surrender destined to be revoked, curiously made the moment sweeter. Bond yielded himself to it utterly. On all that enormous plain of black water it was as if only two human beings existed.

  That was an illusion, too, and a dangerous one. He heard the mental alarm-bell that warns the experienced campaigner of duty left undone, the unlikely but possible approach-route unguarded, the vital item of equipment checked but not double-checked. It was not even so very unlikely that, somewhere on that watery plain that just now had seemed a guarantee of solitude and safety, a group of enemies, cruel, intelligent and well armed, was looking for him, bent on capture or murder.

  The three of them accordingly made what defensive plans appeared most flexible, and the necessary preparations. Then they ate a meal of black olives, fresh bread, delicious plum-shaped tomatoes, sliced raw onion and manouri cheese, followed by peaches and tiny sweet seedless grapes. They drank the light Mamos retsina and rounded off with Votris, which Litsas declared was the only drinkable Greek brandy. Two small glasses of it were enough for Bond. It carried the hint of treacliness which he could never stand in a drink. But he made the necessary polite noises.

  At ten o'clock Litsas got up and stretched. ‘Good night, you two. I'm going to bed down here for a few hours. I hope I won't be seeing you before the morning. But if I do, remember: keep quiet and keep low.’

  The weather was coming from behind them now and the Altair was pitching in a steep, short rhythm. Making love in a small ship with a sea running is not unlike flying through some strange element that at one moment seems thinner than air, at the next thicker than water. For an instant, at the climax, Bond and Ariadne hung weightless, then plunged as if into the still black depths above the ocean floor.

  Bond lay on his face with his arm across Ariadne's belly and sleep came quick and heavy. But he was awake in a flash when a hand pressed his shoulder and a young Greek voice whispered: Kyrie Tzems. Despinis Ariadne. Boat.’

  11

  Death by Water

  The deck was in darkness, apart from the glow aft, where Litsas would be at the wheel. Elsewhere there seemed to be no light at all. Cloud covered the moon and stars. The wind had abated a good deal, to Beaufort 2 or 3. Keeping below the gunwale, Bond crawled aft and round the corner of the deck-housing. ‘Dead ahead,’ said Litsas quietly. ‘Stay close to the mast and have a look.’

  Bond raised himself with caution. He narrowed his eyes. A shadowy bulk, showing its starboard green and a light in a pilot-house amidships, lay almost broadside across their bow perhaps six hundred yards distant. It appeared not to have way on. Bond caught a glimpse of a swept-back stub mast above the cabin top, a movement in the pilot-house. Not much else.

  ‘They came at about twenty knots from where Paros is,’ Litsas went on. ‘Then, when they were on our port bow, they lost way and hove to. Engine trouble, or they're imitating it.’

  ‘Is real engine trouble likely?’ Bond still kept his eyes on the other ship.

  ‘It's possible. Some boat-owners forget their maintenance. They're Greeks. Don't try enough. Anyway, if these people are true they'll have trouble if the weather gets worse again. You could hang no more than a sail like a handkerchief from that little penis, which is all their mast. I'm at half-ahead now. We'll go in slowly.’

  Neither spoke while the distance between the two craft lessened. Bond found that he could make out an intenser patch of darkness to his left that must be Paros. On the starboard bow was an even vaguer shape; he guessed it to be the smaller island of Ios. Ahead, beyond the gradually expanding profile of the other boat, there lay something above and around which an almost indefinable change was taking place, as if an infinitely thin sheet of water were being lowered on to a pool of black ink: Vrakonisi, and the first hint of dawn.

  When the gap had narrowed to something under two hundred yards a faint hail came from the cabin-cruiser.

  ‘Kapetánie!’

  ‘Akoúo – ti thélete?’ shouted Litsas and throttled his motor right back.

  The exchan
ge continued. Litsas relayed excerpts and comments to Bond.

  ‘Both their engines are overheating. They say. They say they've nobody on board who can make repairs. A meltémi – a northern gale – was blowing for four days and they’re afraid it'll freshen again when the sun comes up. That's reasonable. If they're true they must call for assistance. Left alone they could pile up on a reef in a couple of hours. They want us to give them a tow into Vrakonisi. Somebody else might come by, of course. But nobody might. Probably nobody will. What do we do, James?’

  Bond considered. ‘This is one line that we more or less predicted. I don't suppose for a moment that this lot is anything but a boat-load of the opposition. But we're not entitled to ignore the faint chance that they're what they say they are and in serious difficulty. Whatever we're up to we're still sailors. Tell them we'll take them in tow.’

  ‘I agree.’ Litsas shouted acceptance, then lowered his voice. ‘Right James, here are your parcels. I hope to God we've fastened them well.’

  Within twenty seconds Bond had tied the string of small plastic-wrapped packages round his waist and donned the only two useful items of equipment that chance had stowed in the Altair's odds-and-ends locker: a pair of flippers and a hunting-knife for underwater fishing. In similar adventures in the past Bond had had a luxurious armoury of devices to choose from. This time, he realized without dismay, it had been and was going to go on being a matter of improvisation, guts and what physical skills he could command.

  He was ready. Litsas turned from the wheel and spoke low and urgently.

  ‘The only thing we at this end must fear is ramming. With their speed and ours I couldn't avoid that. Now over the side with you. Good luck, James.’

  They gripped hands for a second, Bond threw a leg over the rail and slipped silently down into the invisible water. It struck chill, but he knew that in this sea at this time of the year it would be no worse than cool once he started to move. For the next few minutes he would be confronted with nothing more severe than a simple test of his sense of position and timing – the need to ensure that the bulk of the Altair lay continuously between him and the presumed opposition. He found time to smile at the thought of the presumption turning out to be comically mistaken, elaborate and highly lethal preparations being made against a party of Dutch businessmen or Swedish teachers on vacation. Then the Altair's engine revved up, her bow began to come round to starboard, and Bond was breast-stroking gently to keep his position.