Goldeneye

by John Gardner

  They found no further weapons on him, so eventually Bond was frog-marched down the two flights of steel stairs and up to the console where Trevelyan worked with Boris.

  “James!” Trevelyan turned in his chair, speaking in almost a jovial manner. “What a damned unpleasant surprise.”

  “I always aim to please, Alec.” Trevelyan raised an eyebrow. “I suppose that’s the difference between us. I aim to kill.” His eyes hardened.

  “Where’s the girl?”

  “We’re not seeing each other right now.

  “Really? My people said she was with you.” He turned to the guards. “Find her. She has to be in here somewhere.” Two of the men left quickly, the other two remained with Bond, placing the contents of his pockets on the console in front of Trevelyan. As they did so, Bond carefully scanned the monitors. He took in the long scrolling line of transfers from the Bank of England to various banks throughout the world. Then he felt his stomach lurch as he saw the global screen with satellite Mischa over Spain, on a direct course for London. The countdown clock kept going, standing at the moment at TIME TO TARGET He had around a quarter of an hour to stop what would undoubtedly be the greatest catastrophe ever to befall his country.

  With this kind of urgency, there was only one thing he could do.

  Without being too obvious about it, he let his right hand drift over to his left wrist If he activated the mines under the fuel tanks, everyone would die and the satellite would eventually drift down and burn out without firing its nuclear bomb to produce an electronic pulse of the capital.

  He took in the fact that an elevator stood, with doors open, to the far left of the console, next to a technician who was monitoring the guidance system.

  Trevelyan was sorting through the pocket litter on the console.

  Keys, money clip, pen, coins. He gave the pen a quick examination, even clicking it once, scribbling with it on a pad before clicking it off again. Bond was relieved when he put the pen back on the console.

  A few more clicks and he would not even have time to activate the mines.

  Trevelyan’s hand suddenly shot up to Bond’s left arm.

  “The watch please, James,’ yanking it from his wrist, then examining it with an indulgent smile. “How is old Q doing these days?

  Up to his usual tricks, I suppose. I see you have the new model.’ Slowly he turned it over to reveal a tiny red pinpoint winking on the underside. “I still press here, do I?” He pressed the stem and then the small button to the right. The red light immediately stopped winking, and Bond knew that the arming devices in the mines themselves would also blink off and revert to their deactivated mode. He wondered how much fuel was still leaking from the tanks and reckoned that it would be a fair amount running down the catwalk, dripping all the way down to this, the lowest level.

  In the mainframe computer room, Natalya, shivering with cold, typed as rapidly as she could and had all but completed her instructions when the two guards burst in on her. She managed to hit the Enter key, banging it hard, before they dragged her from the chair and led her off, down the stairs to where Bond stood under guard, and Trevelyan sat smiling happily. Boris continued with his work on the keyboard. Above, the global screen showed Mischa gradually moving closer to its target, and Bond looked from the screen to Natalya being brought across the floor. To his pleasure he saw the guards’ boots left damp stains as they marched towards him. The fuel must be spreading both ways.

  Before the little party reached the console area, Bond relaxed.

  “interesting little set-up you have here, Alec. I see that you break into the bank via computer and then make certain large sums of money are transferred - I presume just seconds before you activate GoldenEye which, of course, erases all records of transactions, together with the entire target. Very ingenious.”

  “Thank you, James. High praise indeed, coming from you.

  Bond gestured with his head. “Still nothing but petty theft, Alec. In the end you’re nothing more than a bank robber. A common thief. A common murderer also.”

  “Hardly, James. You always did have a small mind. You see, it’s not just a question of bank records.” His eyes, now like a stormy sky, scanned Bond’s face. “It’s everything in every computer in greater London. Tax records. The stock market.

  Credit ratings, land registries. Even criminal records…” He looked up at the countdown clock. “In eleven minutes and forty-three no two… one seconds, the United Kingdom will once more enter the Stone Age.”

  “Followed by Tokyo, Frankfurt, New York, Hong Kong. A world-wide financial meltdown.” He looked as though he pitied Trevelyan. “All so that mad little Alec can settle a score with the world fifty years on. So you can settle an injustice done to your ancestors.”

  “Oh, please, James, spare me any Freudian analysis. I might as well ask you if all those vodka martinis ever silence the screams of all the men and women you’ve killed…” He looked past Bond to the guards bringing Natalya towards them. “… Or do you find your forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women?” He slammed his hand hard onto the console. “England is about to learn the final cost of betrayal.’ Natalya had been brought close to them now.

  “Welcome to the party, my dear Natalya.” Boris, hearing her name, swivelled his chair and saw her. “Natalya?” He sounded shocked.

  “This isn’t just one of your games, Boris. Real people are about to die, you contemptuous little bastard.” She shrugged free of her captors and took a step forward, her palm hitting him hard on the left cheek and then a backhander to the right.

  They roughly pulled her back and, in the tiny skirmish, the pen, given to Bond by Q, rolled onto the floor. Boris slowly reached down, picked it up and began to click it on and off.

  Bond watched him, fascinated by the clicks. “Click-click’ one more and the device would be armed. But Boris merely started to roll the pen between his fingers.

  “Where did you find her?” Trevelyan asked her guards.

  “She was in the mainframe, sir.” Trevelyan scowled, then snapped at Boris, “Check the programme.” Boris chuckled. “She couldn’t put a bug in a simple game, let alone damage us. She’s a moron. A second level programmer. Anyway, she doesn’t have access to the firing codes.

  All she knows about is the guidance system.

  As he said it, Boris seemed to slow down, slurring the final words and, at that moment, an alarm began to beep, as though someone had tried to break into a car.

  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 h
e 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, there 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.