High Time To Kill

by Raymond Benson

  The plane swerved dangerously before the pilot was able to level it and set a course for east Nepal.

  The leader punched Lee hard in the face. The Chinese man fell back into his seat, unconscious. The leader told the woman next to him, “Fasten his seat belt.”

  He went back to the cockpit and pulled his companion out and laid him in the aisle. He was dead. The other conspirator looked frightened. Now what would they do? In answer to the unstated question, the leader said, “We continue as planned. It just means more money for the two of us, right?”

  The other man hadn’t thought of that. He grinned nervously and nodded.

  “Keep an eye on the passengers, and especially that Chinese piece of dirt,” the leader said, then went back to the cockpit.

  The pilot said, “There’s a storm over east Nepal. Looks like a bad one. We should not fly that way.”

  “Just get us to Darjeeling,” the leader said.

  “I can’t without going through the storm. We don’t have enough fuel to skirt around it. We’ll have to go back to Kathmandu.”

  “No! Fly into the storm. We’ll take our chances.”

  “Are you mad? We could crash into one of the mountains!”

  The leader shoved the barrel into the pilot’s temple, hurting him. “Get us to Darjeeling, or you’re dead.”

  “If you shoot me,” the pilot stammered, “then you will die, too.”

  “So be it. You want me to shoot you now and get it over with?”

  The pilot hesitated, then turned the plane eastward.

  A half hour later, they felt the effects of the storm. High winds, sleet, and snow battered the little plane. The turbulence bounced it up and down, frightening the passengers even more. Some of them were praying aloud, others were sobbing and holding on to their loved ones, and a few were sitting silently, staring ahead in horror. The senator from America was sweating profusely. The Member of Parliament was biting his lower lip.

  They were over Taplejung when visibility became impossible. Now even the leader was concerned.

  “Do you know where we are?” he asked.

  The pilot shrugged. “Somewhere over east Nepal. The navigation isn’t working. They shot at our tail earlier, on the ground. There’s something wrong with it. I can’t maneuver the plane very well. We should turn back.”

  “Keep going.”

  The pilot, who was not accustomed to anything more complicated than sight-seeing flights over the Himalayas, didn’t know how to handle the situation. He was lost, and he had no clue as to which way was north or south. For all he knew, he could be flying completely off course.

  The storm assaulted the plane with intensity. At one point the aircraft dipped so abruptly that the pilot thought for certain that it was all over. He managed to pull the aircraft back up into the thick white wall of horror and kept going. He didn’t know that the plane was now headed northeast into the Himalayas.

  “She’s not responding!” he cried. “I can’t get a decent reading on where we are! For the love of God, we must turn back!”

  For once the leader was quiet, staring out the windshield at the whiteness. His eyes widened when he saw the summit of a large mountain materialize out of the milk-colored curtain.

  “Look out!” he yelled, but it was too late.

  The plane scraped the edge of the mountain and went careening off into oblivion. This time the pilot screamed as he fought for control of the little plane. He pulled the stick back as far as he could so that the aircraft would climb as high as possible. Miraculously, it worked. After a minute of sheer terror, the plane leveled.

  “What kind of damage did that do?” the pilot asked the leader. The man peered out the windshield but couldn’t see a thing.

  “I think we hit a wing, but we’re still flying,” he said. Then he noticed that the right propeller was behaving erratically. “That propeller—is it all right?”

  The pilot looked at his controls. “No, we’re losing it. We’re going to crash. There’s no way we can get back to Kathmandu now.”

  “What about Darjeeling?”

  “Forget it,” the pilot said. “We’re in the Himalayas. I don’t know how to get there. We can try to save ourselves by turning back.”

  The leader thought a minute, then said, “Okay, let’s try. Turn her around.”

  The pilot couldn’t see a thing. He punched in new navigation coordinates, but something wasn’t right. The controls weren’t responding.

  “Navigation is completely out,” he said quietly.

  “What do we do now?” the leader asked. His abrupt, authoritarian manner had completely vanished.

  “Pray.”

  Through the ice and snow that was assaulting the windshield, the two men saw a dark shape getting closer. Given the conditions, it was impossible to determine how far away the peak was, but they could see that it was a monster.

  The pilot reacted and tried to turn away from it. The dark shape loomed even nearer until it filled the entire windshield.

  “Pull up! Pull up!” the leader shouted.

  “I can’t!” was the last thing the pilot yelled.

  The plane hit a relatively flat ledge not far from the summit of Kangchenjunga, the third tallest mountain in the world. The wings were snapped off immediately and the fuselage slid along the rocky ice and caught fire. It smashed against a wall of rock and ice, rolled over twice, and finally settled on a slanting but near-level patch of glacier.

  The impact, the freezing cold, and the lack of oxygen at such a high altitude were immediately fatal to nearly everyone aboard. Three people, however, extraordinarily survived the ordeal but were knocked unconscious. Their hell would begin shortly.

  ELEVEN

  THE GREEN LIGHT

  THE WALTHER P99 ROARED WITH A BARRAGE OF AMPLIFIED NOISE.

  The walls of the underground room bounced the crashing sound back and forth until he had emptied the magazine. James Bond remained with his arms outstretched and his grip firm, then slowly relaxed and ejected the magazine and placed the pistol on the counter. He pushed the button on the wall to his right to move the target.

  The silhouette of a “bad man” slid forward on the track so that Bond could examine how well he had done. Each bullet had hit the bull’s-eye inside the outlined heart.

  “Not bad, Double-O Seven,” the instructor said. Reinhardt was a veteran of the service, a man in his sixties who had refused early retirement and still worked part-time in the firing range in the basement of SIS headquarters. A Canadian of German ancestry, the instructor had come to England and joined the secret service during its glory days after the Second World War. Bond thought he was an excellent tutor, and at times felt that he owed his life to the man who had taught him a thing or two about weaponry.

  “Not bad?” Bond exclaimed. “I blew his heart to bits, Dave.”

  “Not bad” in Reinhardt’s book was to be interpreted as “excellent,” for Bond had never received higher praise from him. Reinhardt never handed out compliments. In fact, the instructor considered 007 the best shot in the entire building, but he believed that too much praise was anathema to the soul.

  “But what did he do to you? He could very well have blown your head off,” Reinhardt said. He punched a button on the machine behind them. A computerized image of Bond appeared on the attached television monitor. The instructor pushed another button; the tape rewound to the beginning. Bond’s silhouette could be seen drawing his pistol, taking a stance, and aiming at the camera. Flashes of white light swarmed around the gun as he fired, but at the same time, red pinpoints began to dot his torso. The instructor pressed a button and froze the image.

  “There, you see?” Reinhardt said. “He got you in the … shoulder, the right lung, and just below the neck. Not fatal, but enough to spoil your aim on your last few rounds. You’d have to go to hospital in a hurry, or you’d be dead within the hour.”

  “My first shot would have killed him,” Bond countered.

  “Perhap
s,” the instructor acknowledged. He knew full well that Bond was right; he just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of a pat on the back. It was his way, and he was aware that Bond knew it.

  Bond removed the Zeiss Scopz shooting glasses and Aearo Peltor Tactical 7 ear defenders, and wiped the beads of sweat off his brow. “I think that’s all for today, Dave, I need to get back upstairs,” he said.

  “Fine, Double-O Seven. It’s good to see you haven’t lost your edge.”

  “But you’re saying there’s room for improvement?”

  “There’s always room for improvement, Double-O Seven. Never get it in your head that you’re the best shot on the planet. Look what happened to Billy the Kid.”

  “What happened to Billy the Kid other than that he was shot by Pat Garrett?” Bond asked.

  “He got careless and cocky. It was his downfall. That’s how Garrett got to him. Never think that you’re better than the other guy, or you won’t try as hard. You’ll let down your guard. Remember that.”

  “Thanks, Dave. But isn’t it also psychologically helpful to have the self-confidence to believe you’re going to win, no matter what?”

  “Of course! I don’t claim to make perfect sense when I tell you these things!” He chuckled. “You’re supposed to assimilate everything I say, even if it’s contradictory!”

  Bond holstered his gun and said good-bye. He normally kept the old PPK in his shoulder holster and used the newer P99 for backup. The trouble was that the P99 was slightly bulkier and was less easily concealed beneath a jacket. A lot of men used the P99 in a shoulder holster, but Bond’s habits died hard. He loved the old PPK as much as he had once adored the Beretta. He would never be able to make a permanent switch.

  He took the elevator to his floor and walked into the reception area. Using his key card to gain access to the work space, Bond said hello to one of the newer secretaries and made his way down the aisle toward Helena Marksbury’s desk.

  Her back was to him as she typed; a phone receiver was cradled between her left shoulder and her ear. As he walked past, he lightly squeezed her other shoulder. She looked up at him, forced a grin, and waved slightly. Bond walked on into his private office.

  It was an awkward situation. Obviously everything wasn’t back to normal. At least he felt better physically. His body had healed quickly. He didn’t have to wear the harness around his torso any longer, and the cracked rib was a vague memory.

  The in tray held a report from Foreign Intelligence regarding the search for Steven Harding. It was inconclusive, but preliminary findings indicated that he might have left Europe for North Africa or the Middle East. Bond thought that this wasn’t much of a leap in logic. The Union’s headquarters was rumored to be located in either of those two places. As for Lee Ming, the last word received at SIS was that Station I’s attempt to arrest him had failed. Word on his whereabouts was expected at any time.

  Helena, now off the phone, stuck her head in the door and said, “I’m glad you’re back. M wants to see you in ten minutes.” She started to leave, but Bond stopped her.

  “Helena.”

  She paused and looked at him.

  “Come in here,” he said.

  She swallowed, made a face of resignation, then stepped inside the office.

  “Are you handling this all right? You’re not thinking of transferring to another department, are you?”

  She shook her head. “I’m fine. How are you handling it?” She said it with a touch of sarcasm.

  The inflection in her voice was just enough to make Bond’s blood rise. He hated it when relationships broke down into pettiness.

  “Helena, sit down.” She sat in the leather chair across from his desk and looked at him as if he were a headmaster and she, the naughty girl, had received a summons.

  “Now, look. We’ve had a fine time, you and I. We both agreed that it was not the best idea for us to continue this affair while we’re here in London. Am I right?”

  “You’re right.”

  “But you seem to be having a problem with it.”

  She bit her lower lip to keep from saying something she might regret, then said instead, “James, I will be fine. Don’t worry about me. Now I must get back to work.”

  “Wait,” he said. “Let’s leave us for a moment. I have to ask you about the leak.”

  Helena regained her composure. At least she could display the facade of professionalism when she had to, even when she was suffering inside.

  “They questioned me for two hours,” she said. “I had nothing to tell them, of course. There is no way that the information could have been leaked out of my office.”

  Bond didn’t say anything.

  “You believe me, don’t you?”

  He did. “Helena, I trust you implicitly. It’s just bloody disconcerting that someone knew my movements in Belgium before I made them. Do you have any idea who could have done this?”

  She shook her head. “I answered that question at least twenty times, James. No. Now, can I go back to work? I have to get out a report.”

  He nodded, giving her permission to stand and leave the room. Her manner was cold and abrupt. It was to be expected, Bond thought, considering the nature of their relationship now.

  Why did his love affairs, whenever they became somewhat serious, always end up so messy? Salvaging them was always a problem, which is why he rarely remained friends with former lovers. It was a pattern that he had long ago resigned himself to, even though he would never grow accustomed to it. He had met few women who were able to distinguish the difference between sex and a relationship, or who could have one without the other. In his own perfect world, men would be completely happy going through life from partner to partner, loving their mates equally but not exclusively. Cynically, Bond liked to think that women invented the concept of relationships and marriage in an effort to exert control over their male counterparts.

  She would get over it. It would take some time, and then perhaps they could renew their passion on another extended holiday away from England. In the meantime, though, Bond decided he must keep Helena Marksbury at arm’s length until things cooled down—or warmed up, as the case might be.

  “Something’s up, James,” Moneypenny said as he stood beside her desk, waiting to be buzzed into M’s inner sanctum.

  “News on Skin 17?”

  “I think so. She’s been with the Minister of Defence most of the day and just got back.”

  “That sounds interesting.”

  The green light flashed above the door.

  “In you go,” she said, giving Bond the warm smile he knew so well.

  M was sitting in her black leather swivel armchair, studying images on the monitors behind her desk. Bill Tanner was standing next to her, pointing out some detail in a picture. If Bond wasn’t mistaken, they were photographs of Himalayan peaks.

  “Sit down, Double-O Seven,” M said without looking at him. Then, to Tanner, “How can we be sure there are bodies intact inside the fuselage? It looks to me as if it was burned badly.”

  “Yes, ma’am, but as you can see from this shot”—Tanner pressed a button and zoomed in on what appeared to be the wreckage of an aircraft—“the entire fuselage is intact. The burn marks are back here, all over the tail end. The front is relatively damage free. The wings are gone, of course.”

  “You don’t suppose anyone could have survived that crash?” she asked.

  “Highly doubtful,” Tanner answered. “If anyone did, they would certainly be dead by now. The abrupt change in altitude from a pressurized cabin to twenty-six thousand feet above sea level would kill a man quite quickly. Not to mention the freezing temperatures and the fact that it was unlikely that any of the passengers were dressed for exposure of that kind.”

  M swiveled her chair to face Bond. “Double-O Seven, you’re an experienced mountaineer, aren’t you?” she asked.

  Not sure how to reply, Bond said, “Well, yes, I used to take great pleasure in the sport, but I ha
ven’t done it in a while.”

  “Haven’t you climbed Everest?”

  “Yes, ma’am, and Elbrus, too. Most of my experience has been in the Alps and Austrian Tyrol. Why?”

  With pen in hand she pointed to the image of the plane wreckage on the monitor. “Skin 17 is here, in this airplane, high on one of the Himalayas’ tallest peaks.”

  Bond raised his eyebrows. “What?”

  Tanner filled him in on what they had learned that morning from Station I. Lee Ming had boarded a sight-seeing flight that had apparently been hijacked. Its final destination was unknown, but the plane was tracked eastward, into a bad storm. The aircraft went down less than two thousand feet from the summit of Kangchenjunga, located in the northeast corner of Nepal on the border with Sikkim.

  “We now have a very good excuse to go up there and find Mr. Lee’s body,” M said. “Because the travel agency that owned the plane is British, we have a compelling reason for the Nepalese government to give us a permit to climb the mountain. There were American and British citizens aboard the flight, and their families want to salvage the bodies and see what personal belongings can be found. More significantly, the plane was carrying an MP and an American senator and their wives.”

  “That’s normally not done, ma’am,” Bond said. “Hundreds of people have died in climbing accidents over the years. Everest has claimed the lives of at least a hundred and fifty people, and their bodies have remained on the mountain to this day—no matter who they were. I’m sure there are many such corpses on Kangchenjunga.”

  “I understand that, Double-O Seven, but we have to tell the Nepalese something reasonable. We can tell them that we want to perform a salvage operation for humanitarian reasons so that the victims’ loved ones can give their family members a proper burial. And there’s the matter with the government officials being aboard. What we’re really going to do is find that bloody pacemaker.”