‘M warned me this would happen,’ Miranda whispered breathlessly.
‘You’re not as good at faking it as you think,’ Bond replied.
‘Was I that obvious?’
‘Tried a little too hard not to be interested in me.’
‘God, you’re worse than your file says. I should have let them catch you. Now I’m exposed.’ She caught sight of Kil watching them through the steam and kissed Bond again.
‘You’re not fooling anyone. Put your back into it,’ Bond said. Miranda really turned it on then, making passionate moans and kissing Bond with fervour. Kil gave up, disgusted, and sent the other guards back with the dogs. The alarms soon stopped.
‘I know all about you, Double-O Seven,’ Miranda murmured between kisses. ‘Sex for dinner, death for breakfast. Well it won’t work with me.’
That’s better,’ he said, returning her enthusiasm. Between kisses and whispers of sweet nothings, Miranda talked business.
‘I so admire your restraint, you were here a full two hours before anything blew up. What were you doing at the mine?’
'Just letting off a little steam,’ Bond replied. ‘You were right about his security.’
‘Should have listened to me, you could have got yourself killed , . .’ She bit him on the ear and wrapped her legs around his waist underwater.
‘You’re getting good at this,’ Bond noted.
'Hmmm. so are you,’ she murmured. ‘Are we still being watched?’
‘Oh we fooled him. He left a while ago.’
‘And he couldn’t even see what your hands were doing.’
It’s all about attention to detail.’
Then Bond noticed that a new figure was watching them through the steam: Gustav Graves. The man walked forward to the edge of the spa and said, ‘Excitement seems to follow you around, Mister Bond.’ Miranda gave a little shriek of embarrassment and ducked down in the water.
'Miranda, you give new meaning to “public relations"' Graves commented. ‘Don’t let your devotion to work make you late tomorrow.’
She smiled thinly at her boss, who then walked away.
Graves went straight to the hothouse, and crossed around the pool, heading beneath the waterfall to where Vlad’s workshop was located. Vlad was already there, making adjustments inside the Icarus control case. He looked up and smiled as Graves came in.
‘Happy, boss?’ he asked.
‘Vlad, I’ve already told you once tonight that you’re a genius,’ Graves replied. ‘Now show me the . . . modifications.’
Vlad pressed a couple of buttons and the case smoothly yielded up the curved metallic object contained within. It was a gauntlet, a brassard made of metal on which the trackball was mounted. Next to the gauntlet was a strange visor. The entire mechanism hummed.
Graves went to touch it but Vlad stopped him. ‘The self-defence mechanism you asked me to build in ...
‘Fifty thousand volts?’
‘A hundred,’ Vlad said proudly. He pressed a button on the arm and the humming stopped. Graves lifted the brassard excitedly. He held it as if it were a priceless work of art.
‘Armed and very dangerous,’ he said, entranced.
Bond opened the door to his suite and looked back at Mr Kil at the end of the corridor. Bond smiled and for once, Kil smiled back. Bond closed the door and went into the suite, which was now bedecked with lit candles. Miranda was waiting for him, anxiously sitting on the fur-lined bed.
‘You’d better stay here tonight,’ Bond said. ‘Keep up the charade of being lovers.’
‘For one night only,’ she agreed. She started taking off her clothes. ‘But the way you’re going you’ll get us both killed.’
‘Advance and the bullet might miss. Retreat and it never will.’ He removed his jacket, tie and shirt. Miranda slid under the fur and admired his body. She noticed the scars and other marks on his torso.
‘James, tell me,’ she asked, ‘What really happened in North Korea?’
'I was betrayed, that was all.’
Bond slid his Walther under the pillow and got into the bed beside her. ‘Occupational hazard,’ he explained.
‘You’re different to what I expected,’ she said, studying his face. The cold blue eyes, the cruel mouth, the faint scar on his right cheek - they made him devilishly handsome.
‘How so?’
‘More ... alive.’
‘So are you.’ He kissed her hard on the mouth and she pulled back a little. She looked into his eyes, pulled him close and kissed him back.
‘This is crazy,’ she muttered. ‘You’re a Double-O ...’
‘It’s just a number.’
He held her tightly against him and they began to make love.
14 - In the Hothouse
It was the middle of the night.
The man wearing snow-goggles and a balaclava padded down the corridor from the hothouse, went past Vlad’s office, climbed the stairs to the second level and approached the closed glass door that was the entrance to Gustav Graves’ office. He slowly opened it and stepped inside the unusual room, which was made mostly of glass: the floor, the ceiling, the desk and parts of the walls.
Graves was lying on a reclining chair. A curved screen - the same Dream Machine that had been used in the Beauty Parlour clinic in Cuba - covered his face. The device blinked with dancing colours as his eyes moved rapidly, scarily, beneath half-closed lids.
The stranger removed the balaclava and goggles and set them down on a desk. He moved to Graves and put a hand on his arm. Graves awoke, pushed the screen away, acknowledged his visitor and stood. The two men regarded each other wordlessly and then began to converse in Korean.
‘You look terrible,’ Zao said.
‘You aren’t looking too good yourself,’ Graves replied. The white-skinned Zao still looked bizarre and faintly reptilian.
Graves switched to English. ‘For just a little longer I must remain this fiction.’
Zao indicated the curved screen and asked, also in English, ‘You’re still getting side effects?’
‘For me the insomnia is permanent,’ Graves answered ‘But an hour a day on the Dream Machine keeps me sane. So ... what happened to you?’
Zao narrowed his eyes and said, ‘Bond.’
‘He does get about, doesn’t he?’ Graves smiled and held his hand to his face. ‘But he knows nothing. I have been this close to him and he had no idea who I really am.’ He paused, almost afraid to ask his next question. ‘Did you see my father after you were exchanged?’
Zao eyed Graves warily. ‘Yes. General Moon still mourns your death.’ Emotion suddenly overcame Zao and he bowed. ‘How strong you have been, to hide in the shell of the thing you hate!’
Graves, aka Colonel Moon, put a hand on Zao’s shoulder, then walked over to a mirror. He studied his reflection for a few moments, then his face convulsed in repulsion at what he saw. He smashed his fist into the mirror, hitting it again and again, splintering it into a thousand pieces in an attempt to destroy his despicable image. Zao watched him silently, allowing his leader to release the tension that had obviously been building.
Finally, Graves calmed down and looked at the shards of mirror on the ground.' They now made a fractured image of his face.
A warning buzz sounded on an electronic panel over the desk. A blue light flashed with the message: ‘Intruder Alert’. Graves and Zao eyed each other and then Graves moved to the brassard on the desk. He pressed a button and it hummed with growing power.
Jinx was not only a world-class swimmer and diver: she was also adept at stealth. She could climb like a cat and retain her balance as skilfully as any tightrope artist. In fact, when she had been a little girl, she had wanted to run away and join the circus. She had made her father set up an elaborate structure in the family’s backyard so that she could perform tightrope and trapeze stunts. She had been a star on her school’s gymnastics team.
Jinx was superbly qualified to scale the geodesic dome silently and quickly. Wearing a black cats
uit, she reached the top of the dome, easily cut out one of the octagon-shaped membrances, jammed a steel rod into the frame and snaked her body through the opening. A wire attached to her belt fed out of the rod, allowing her to glide smoothly down to the floor of the hothouse. She detached the wire, pulled out a knife and was ready to start hunting
At first she was slightly intimidated by the size of the hothouse. Where to start? Looking around, she noticed the corridor leading behind the waterfall and figured that’s where the offices would be. She slunk around the pool and made her way into the passageway. A light at the end attracted her, as the door was slightly ajar. She went closer and saw that it was Graves’ office.
She heard a strange humming noise coming from the room, so she slowly pushed the door open and entered. A man was lying on a reclining chair with one of the Cuban Dream Machines over his face. Graves.
Jinx drew the Browning from the holster at her side and aimed at the man’s chest. She fired three rapid shots but the bullets went thud into a wall of bulletproof glass that she hadn’t noticed. Cracks snaked across the barrier.
Damn! Why hadn’t she seen the glass?
Before she could move, Zao flipped up the Dream Machine and smiled at her, his creepy face taking on even more of a reptilian appearance in the blue light. Startled, Jinx took a step back and was hit with a thousand volts as Graves stepped out from a hiding place and grabbed her with the weird gauntlet. She convulsed violently and fell to the floor, unconscious.
It was not quite dawn.
Bond dressed quietly in a black survival suit and covered it with his street clothes. He moved to the bed where Miranda was sleeping. He carefully lifted the pillow to retrieve his gun, but Miranda’s hand covered it before he could touch it.
‘James?’ she whispered. ‘Be careful.’
He took the Walther and said, ‘Go to your room-Lock yourself in. I’ll come back for you.’
Bond leaned over to kiss her softly on the forehead, then left the room.
The corridor was empty and quiet. He moved quickly to the lobby and saw a guard behind the reception desk and another near the front doors. Looking around him, he saw that a few pieces of ice had broken off the lower edge of the corridor entrance. A food cart or something had probably struck it, Bond presumed. He reached down and picked up a piece of ice the size of a golf ball. He then got into position and threw it hard across the lobby, hitting the other corridor that led to the umbilical tunnel. Both guards looked up. The one at the door shrugged at the receptionist and walked over to the tunnel and disappeared to check out the noise.
Bond slipped around the edge and into the lobby. He moved quickly out of the receptionist’s line of sight and through the front door.
The early morning air was cold. The sun was just beginning to rise and it cast a magical golden glow over the frozen lake, which the wind had swept clear of snow, but Bond had no time to admire the view. He went to the car park and looked towards the security fence that surrounded the large dome. A sentry manned the hole that Bond had blown in it earlier. Bond removed the keyfob from his pocket and pressed some buttons. He waited a few moments until he heard the soft purr of the engine near him. He punched more buttons and the Aston Martin pixellated into view, having steered across the ice through the hole in the fence without being seen. Bond opened the trunk and then a strange flickering blue light, reflected off the interior of the hothouse dome, distracted him.
Jinx opened her eyes to a blur. The figure in front of her slowly came into focus and she thought she was having a nightmare. The face in front of her was white, with blue reptilian eyes. And then she recognised him. Zao, the terrorist.
She attempted to leap up but found that she was strapped tightly to a bench. Surrounding her were strange robotic devices with arms outfitted with lasers; state of the art tools for cutting diamonds. The machines came to life when Zao pressed a button on a control panel.
‘Why do you want to kill me?’ he asked.
Then she saw that he was wearing the strange gauntlet on his arm, the thing that she had seen inside the case when Graves had performed his demonstration. It was making the humming noise she had heard.
‘I figured that was the humane thing to do,’ she answered.
Anger flashed in his eyes. Zao reached forward with the brassard and touched her. She jerked savagely as electricity surged throughout her body. She passed out again briefly, then slowly came to.
Jinx cleared her throat and said, ‘So you got a fancy . cattle-prod. Big deal. ’
‘Who sent you?’ Zao asked.
‘Your mother. She’s very disappointed with you.
He touched her again with the device. Jinx’s body tensed and she gasped with pain.
‘I’ll let you in on a secret,’ Zao said. ‘This mine is a fake - but the lasers are real.’
Another voice asked, ‘Why don’t we use them?’ Jinx turned her head and saw Kil standing off to the side. There was a sick gleam in his eye.
‘We’ll try this a while longer,’ Zao replied. He reached forward and touched her again with the deadly brassard.
This time she screamed.
Bond squatted by the Vanquish so that he could operate in its shadow. Directing his new wristwatch at the ice, he switched on the built-in laser and began to cut a hole large enough for him to fit through. The process went very quickly. He burned away a small handhold and pulled the piece of ice off the ground, just like a manhole cover.
Water flowed below, from the hothouse to the lake. He took a deep breath and slipped into the freezing cold water.
He then pulled the plug he had made back over his head.
Bond swam a dozen strokes, getting his bearings. He was in a cold, blue world that was completely different from anything he’d swum in before. Above him was an equally bizarre sight; the floorplan of the Ice Palace at its nearest point to the domes, practically a blueprint.
He concentrated on his heart, the exercise he had learned long ago in order to control his body. It was the only way to survive the intense cold. He swam harder, farther, until he knew that he was nearly there. A shaft of light shone in the distance.
Just as his breath nearly gave out, he surfaced in the hothouse pool.
Jinx was almost senseless. Zao had zapped her four times, each time sending her into temporary unconsciousness. He finally realised that it was hopeless.
‘She Won’t talk.’ Zao offered Kil a gun; ‘Let’s make it permanent.’
Kil moved one of the diamond-cutting lasers into position. ‘Can I use the lasers?’ he asked eagerly.
Zao turned to leave and said, ‘Don’t leave a mess.’ Kil Considered the victim and made an artistic readjustment to the laser’s position, then used a remote control to turn it on. The bright red beam shot out of the arm and cut into the bench between her legs. The bench began to inch slowly towards the beam. Kil grinned, then gagged the terrified Jinx.
Not far away, James Bond pushed his way through the hothouse foliage, the Walther in his hand. Someone was coming.
He ducked behind a large bush and waited until a guard walked by. When it was safe to move, he crept slowly towards the waterfall. Another figure walked through, and Bond took cover again. When he saw who it was, he couldn’t believe his eyes. It was Zao, wearing Graves’ arm device.
Should I take him out now? he wondered. He had a clean shot. Bond raised the gun but he waited too long. Zao disappeared through the foliage.
He moved on and came across the descender wire hanging from the roof Somehow he knew whom it belonged to. Bond kept going and entered the corridor behind the waterfall. A way down the hall a door was ajar and through it he could see an arm strapped to a bench. He moved silently towards it and peered inside.
Bond was horrified to see Jinx gagged and strapped to the table. The laser was an inch away from her body. No one else was in the room. Bond rushed inside, grabbed the remote control unit and slipped the gun in his waistband.
After a quick scan of
the buttons, he pushed one and the moving bench reversed its direction. She was temporarily out of danger.
Bond reached up and freed one of her arms. She ripped off the gag herself and cried, ‘James!’
Too late! Kil leapt from nowhere and onto Bond’s back, knocking him forward. Both the Walther and the remote control went flying. When the remote hit the floor, the other three lasers came alive and began to shoot in a web of random fire around the room. Jinx tried in vain to free her other arm but couldn’t reach the cuff.
Bond rolled before Kil could kick him in the stomach. The big man lost his balance and toppled to one side, nearly falling into one of the laser beams that were arcing back and forth across the floor. He caught himself just in time but the distraction gave Bond the opportunity to get to his feet. Bond delivered a solid punch to Kil’s face but it hardly fazed the henchman. Kil deflected another blow with a powerful block that knocked Bond against Jinx’s table.
‘Stop dancing and do something!’ she shouted.
The bench was still moving along its tracks, this time towards one of the other laser beams. This one would slice across her face in moments if Bond didn’t act quickly. He couldn’t see the remote but didn’t have a second to look for it. He had to defend himself just as Kil came at him like a rhinoceros. The brute strength of the man slammed Bond against a control panel, causing a burst of sparks. Bond ignored the searing pain in his shoulder and brought his leg up high, kicking Kil in the chest. He fell backward just as the third laser suddenly changed its path of attack. It now swung back and forth, like a pendulum, between Bond and Kil. The beam traced a smoking, burning line in the floor.
This gave Bond the time he needed to find the remote. He saw it four feet away, lying within reach of both men. Kil eyed it at the same time. Both men knew that whoever got to the remote first could switch off the lasers, but then the other man would be free to attack with full force.
Bond launched himself at the remote and Kil hurled his huge body in the same direction. Bond got to it first and punched a button on the device, shutting off the swinging laser.
Bond Movies 07 - Die Another Day Page 11
