He might even ask for a leave of absence. Why not? He wanted to take Sixtine to a big city that he knew well, somewhere he would be on his own territory. Rome perhaps. The Hotel Majestic in the Via Veneto. Dinner at Alfredo’s with its famous fettuccine, a midnight stroll along the Tiber and then, later …
‘James.’
He heard the worry in her voice and glanced in the mirror. He saw them at once. They were half a mile behind, only specks, but already closing in. Not cars. Motorbikes. At least three of them. He could hear the distant roar of the throttles. Inch by inch they were expanding in the mirror. Maybe he had two or three minutes before they caught up.
He stamped on the accelerator but the jeep was already doing the best it could. They had reached Castellar! Now the die was cast. The road swept them along, giving them no alternative but to follow the hill down into the village centre. There were no turn-offs. They were hemmed in by olive trees and vegetable gardens on one side and a high stone wall with a church on the other. They spun round a corner between tumbling bushes and a sheer drop to the terraces below, the wheels kicking up a miniature storm of gravel and dust. The further they went, the narrower the road became. The motorbikes were filling the mirror now. Black BMWs. Bond could make out the hunched shapes of the riders leaning over the windscreens.
No! There it was ahead of him, the worst bad luck. The wretched donkey with its cart filled with melons, the same one that he had seen the day before, once again blocking the way! Its owner was tugging at the reins, urging it to move forward but the animal seemed to be in no particular mood to cooperate. Bond swore. He couldn’t slow down but there was no way around it. One side of the road consisted of houses packed tightly together with balconies, outdoor staircases and brightly coloured washing hanging out to dry. No alleyways. No openings. The other was barred off by a long line of metal bollards with the hillside beyond, a series of gardens and orchards dropping away steeply to the next bend in the road. The village was suddenly busy. There were women shopping, old men outside a café playing backgammon, children chasing each other round the tables. Two stalls had been set up, one selling cheese, the other saucissons. Just to add to the atmosphere, a grandfather was sitting on a stool playing an accordion. All it needed, Bond reflected bitterly, was a couple of cockerels and a few baskets of geraniums and he could have made a fortune selling the postcard.
He slowed down. The motorbikes were right behind him. There were five of them in all: black and silver, as mean as hornets, whipping along with their glittering chrome and exposed drive shafts. Some of the riders had taken out guns, balancing them against the hand grips. He suddenly became aware that Sixtine had left her seat and was clambering into the back. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her jerk open the ammunition box and pull out a magazine clip. She rammed it into the gun and pulled back the cocking handle. Bond’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Seconds later there was a burst of gunfire that sounded deafening at close quarters. The nearest two riders were blown out of their seats, their bodies cartwheeling through the air as their machines toppled and slid away beneath them. At the same time, the street ahead of the jeep emptied as if hit by a tornado. People ran in all directions. The donkey whinnied and jerked forward, scattering the melons. Children were grabbed and swept into doorways. As Sixtine let loose with a second burst, Bond shouted ‘Hang on!’ and stamped down on the accelerator, swerving to avoid the tumbling melons. The jeep leapt forward, hitting a table outside a café, sending glasses and a deck of cards flying, then crashed through the cheese stall. He heard screaming but the whole village had become a blur. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The shooting stopped. As Bond steered the jeep out of the other side of the village, Sixtine climbed back next to him.
‘It’s jammed!’ she shouted.
‘It did the job!’ Bond replied.
It hadn’t quite. Two motorcyclists remained, dropping back, warily keeping their distance now but still not letting the jeep out of their sight. Bond was determined to lose them and took the first hairpin bend at breakneck speed, the wheels of the jeep almost leaving the ground as they slalomed across the surface of the road. Before they’d had time to recover, he’d swung them viciously the other way, anticipating the next corner. The jeep rocked from side to side as if protesting the punishment it was being given. Briefly, the front fender came into contact with the wall at the side of the road. There was the scream of metal tearing and Bond had to fight for control to stop the whole thing turning over. The engine coughed a second time. The needle was now well into the red. Bond swore quietly. They must already be running on fumes. How much further could they go before grinding to a halt? He twisted the wheel and they rounded the second corner and plunged down, the road steeper than ever.
The Mediterranean lay ahead of them, a dazzling blue that stretched out from the haphazard contours of the shoreline to the straight certainty of the horizon far away. Bond gunned for it, going hell for leather. He wanted to be out of the hills, perhaps even out of France. There was a thought! If he could make it to the Italian border, there would be police in patrol cars. He wondered what they would make of a fully armed jeep, riddled with bullet holes, trying to leave the country. Well, let them arrest him. Right now, a night in jail – locked behind solid doors and surrounded by police – sounded almost attractive.
‘They’re dropping back,’ Sixtine exclaimed.
It was true. The two surviving motorcyclists seemed to have lost heart. The distance between them and the jeep had doubled. Even so, Bond didn’t slow down. He glanced at the speedometer. Sixty-five miles per hour. Almost as far as the speedometer was able to go. Two more bends and they would be down at sea level. They had got away with it!
‘When we get into Menton, I’m going to buy you—’ Bond began.
‘James!’
She had seen them carefully spaced out on the road ahead. He saw them too. A dull shade of silver. They were shaped like pyramids but with four separate protruding spikes made out of thin-gauge steel. Each one was about four inches long. They were inspired by medieval caltrops, devices used to cripple horses, but when the Germans had dropped them on airfields and roads in the last war, they had referred to them as crowsfeet. He recognised them only when it was too late.
He was already braking but the jeep had driven over them and the tyres exploded, the rubber torn to shreds. He lost control at once. It was as if the steering column had been severed and the wheel span uselessly in his hands. They were either going to crash into the hillside or be thrown over the edge of the cliff. Now it was in the hands of the gods.
‘Brace yourself!’ Bond shouted.
Sixtine was already clutching the dashboard with one hand, the other curved round the edge of the broken windscreen. He had one last image of her, resolute and unafraid. Then the jeep came to a corner and, unable to turn, launched itself into the air. For a tiny eternity they hung there, suspended in space. Bond saw the sea rushing towards them, replacing the sky. It came closer and closer, a blue wall that suddenly looked as solid as steel. He felt himself tipping forward and pressed his hands against the steering wheel, pinning himself in his seat. They fell and they fell, everything silent now in the last moments before the end.
They hit the sea with all the force of a missile strike. Bond was aware of the water erupting around them. Without the windscreen to protect him, his head was torn backwards, almost separating from his shoulders. At once he was sucked under. The jeep that had saved them had now become an instrument of death, threatening to lock them in its grip as it sank. At the last moment, Bond had managed to gulp down some air but he knew he had only seconds to get back to the surface. Water filled his vision. He was aware of angry bubbles erupting all around him. He tried to free his legs but they were pinned under the steering wheel. He could feel the pressure building in his ears as he was dragged ever deeper and twisted and writhed, desperately trying to escape. And what of Sixtine? She was no longer next to him. If Bond was going to die, he would
die alone.
He bent himself forward and jack-knifed over the steering wheel. He felt the blunt edge of the windscreen slicing into his stomach, his thighs and then, finally, his ankles. He was free! How deep was he? There was no air in his lungs and he wanted to breathe. No. Keep your lips closed. Feel for the right direction. Swim, damn you. It can’t be too far.
Bond could imagine the jeep continuing silently below him, disappearing into the void. He began to swim, one hand above his head, forcing himself upwards, his eyes closed. It seemed an impossibly long way. He kicked out six times before he felt his fingers break through the surface, the rest of him following a second later, gasping for air, water streaming down his face. He looked around him. Sixtine was there. She had made it out. He swam over to her.
‘Are you OK?’
She nodded, too exhausted to speak.
Bond turned round. With the tyres of the jeep in ribbons, they had left the road and driven off the cliff about thirty yards above them. Looking at the distance they had fallen, Bond was surprised they had managed to survive. He guessed that the metal bodywork of the jeep had, at least to some extent, protected them. The water was warm. There was a ribbon of sand and shingle running alongside the foot of the cliff but no swimmers, no one in deckchairs. Everything had happened so quickly, it was possible that nobody had seen it. They were on their own.
‘Can you swim back?’ Bond asked.
Sixtine was treading water. ‘I can’t think of any other way to get there,’ she said.
They set off together. The beach was very close. It didn’t take them long to reach the edge of the water and then to drag themselves onto the sand. For a moment they lay there, panting, feeling the warm sunshine on their backs. Bond was relieved. It could have been a lot worse. In a way, the entire operation had been clumsy and ill-judged: driving into the compound without any real plan and no back-up, aimlessly stumbling around, crashing their way out. It might have told them what they needed to know but they had been lucky to escape alive.
The crunch of footsteps on the shingle made him look up. There were two men, both of them dressed in waxed leather jackets, holding guns. They had climbed off their motorbikes, leaving them parked on the edge of the road. From behind him came the sound of an outboard motor. Bond turned and saw a four-seat speedboat cruising towards them. It was manned by the two thugs he had already encountered at Ferrix Chimiques. Carlo and Simone. Those had been the names Scipio had addressed them by. The one with the broken nose stood at the wheel. The other was cradling a rifle. Bond glanced at Sixtine and saw in her eyes what he already knew for himself.
It could have been worse. And it was.
18
Number Four
It was a tourist-class cabin for the class of tourist who didn’t demand too much in the way of space and comfort. One day, more than 600 of them would discover the charms of the Mirabelle, the cruise liner that Irwin Wolfe had named after his first wife. There were two berths, one above the other, two wicker chairs, a chest of drawers and a sink. The floor area was just big enough for two people to sit together in comfort but if they wanted to move they would need to plan a route around each other. The toilet was across the passageway, shared with the cluster of six cabins that surrounded it. There was a porthole but it didn’t open and it wasn’t big enough to provide much of a view.
It was less than twenty-four hours since Bond and Sixtine had been brought here. They had arrived separately. It had been made clear that if one caused any trouble, the other would pay but, drawing up in two cars, surrounded by men with guns, there had been no chance of that. Scipio’s two hired hands – Carlo and Simone – had accompanied Bond. They hadn’t spoken to him again but their very presence had confirmed what he already knew. They worked for Scipio. Wolfe owned the Mirabelle. Scipio and Wolfe were in this together. But there was still something missing from the picture. This wasn’t just a case of narcotics smuggling, even if the amounts involved were enormous. What was their common aim?
All night long, the Mirabelle had been preparing for its departure. It had taken more than twelve hours simply to fire up the furnaces. Finally, just before sunrise, Bond had been woken by a distant rumbling and a series of vibrations coursing through the cabin. He swung himself off the bunk and went over to the porthole. There was no view. He and Sixtine had been deliberately placed on the seaboard side, away from the port of Nice. It occurred to him that there were plenty of people looking for them. Sixtine’s team would know that something was wrong and Reade Griffith must surely have noticed that Bond had disappeared. The last time they had spoken had been on the Friday evening before Wolfe’s party. Might he have alerted his people at the CIA? Bond thought it unlikely.
And anyway, it was too late. Looking out of the porthole, Bond saw that they were moving. Wolfe had told him the Mirabelle was going to weigh anchor on the Tuesday morning and here it was, exactly on schedule. The ship would conduct a week of sea tests off the coast of France and then continue to America for its gala reception. And he and Sixtine were to be unwilling passengers – supercargo – at least for part of the trip. Nobody knew where they were. Bond wasn’t expected to report back to London for another twenty-four hours and he hadn’t told Reade Griffith where he and Sixtine were heading either. As far as the CIA man was concerned, the two of them would simply have vanished into thin air.
‘We’re on our way.’ Sixtine’s voice came from behind him.
‘It looks like it.’ Bond watched her climb down from her bunk.
‘So what now? Maybe they’ll throw a launch party. We might even get invited to the captain’s table.’
‘It’ll make a change from beans and potatoes.’ That was all the food they’d had so far, brought in on a tray by a scowling crewman.
Bond could feel movement under his feet now, a very slight swaying as they left the harbour and headed into open sea. The fact that they had left the port only made their situation more perilous. While they were moored, there was always a chance that they might break out and find someone to help them. Now that had become impossible. The cabin on the Mirabelle was a prison within a prison and the great expanse of the sea gave it the solitude and the inescapability of a Devil’s Island. Worse still, they were alone. There were no other passengers and Bond had no doubt that everyone who worked on the Mirabelle, from the captain down to the cabin boy, would have been paid or coerced to do exactly as they were told. Two shots in the night, two bodies overboard. It would have no significance at all in the great emptiness of the ocean.
Sixtine came over to him and looked out of the window. He put an arm around her. ‘Listen to me,’ he said. ‘Whatever happens, you have to survive. It may be that Wolfe has a soft spot for you. He was talking about marrying you only a few days ago. And Scipio knows who you are. He won’t want to go to war with you. What I’m saying is, don’t worry about me. If you can find a way out of this, you have to take it.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, James. For a start, Wolfe is a horrible man who doesn’t care about anyone. He’s not going to give me a break and it certainly won’t have helped our relationship, his finding me with you. As for Scipio, maybe I can talk him round – but I doubt it. No. If we’re going to find a way out of this, as you put it, it’s going to be together. It seems to me our best bet will be to get to the radio room. I can get a message to my group or we can send out a general Mayday alert. Otherwise, it’s just going to be on deck and overboard and let’s hope it’s not too far to swim!’
‘They’ve kept us alive,’ Bond said. ‘There must be a reason for that. Maybe they need us for something.’
Sixtine shuddered. ‘You may be right,’ she said. ‘But I’d prefer not to find out what it is.’
It was another eight hours before they heard the lock being turned and the door opening. The same men who had brought them to the Mirabelle had come for them a second time.
‘Out!’ the man with the broken nose grunted.
‘Which one are you?’ Bond ask
ed. ‘Carlo or Simone?’
‘Just move …’
‘A shame. It would be nice to know your name when I kill you.’
As before, the two men knew where they were going. They led Bond and Sixtine out of the cabin and along a corridor that stretched out ahead of them with what looked like a mile of brand-new carpet, unused handrails, door after door with chrome handles and numbers in the mid-hundreds, glowing lamps set at precise intervals in the ceiling, the countless fire extinguishers that Bond had noticed before. The air was warm. The vibrations were ever-present but seemed more distant. Wolfe had boasted that the ship was fitted with anti-roll stabilisers and Bond had to admit that he could no longer feel any movement under his feet at all.
They went up the stairs and out onto the deck. Bond saw the coast of France, with the hotels, the apartment blocks and shops fighting for space close to the sea and the green hills rising up serenely behind. He guessed they were at least a mile away. It might just be possible to swim ashore but there was no chance of jumping now. He would be dead, riddled with bullets, before he had even reached the side.
A second staircase led up to the promenade deck, which would one day be reserved for first-class passengers. This was where Wolfe had greeted him when he first came on board. When the Mirabelle actually came into commission, there would be an officer positioned at the top on the other side of a discreet barrier, making sure that everyone knew their place. But nobody stopped them as they made their way up and then back inside, into the first-class dining room. Now that they were at sea, there was something eerie about the cruise liner; a sense of the Marie Celeste. The dining room had more than fifty tables, doubled and trebled by their reflections in the mirrored walls. Marble columns cut the room into different sections but the identical chairs, the low ceiling and the thick, red carpet reaching from corner to corner only emphasised that this was one vast space. It was another reason why Bond would never have considered taking a cruise – unless he was at gunpoint. For all its plush, this was a food factory, nothing less. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, two sittings of each, too much food, with the band playing mood music, day after day. It wasn’t for him.
Forever and a Day Page 19
