Giulietta could see Bond's boat in a side mirror. He was gaining fast. She pushed her own engines to the limit, roaring to a new level of speed. The Hawk 34 was a luxury vessel capable of fifty-four knots, but Giulietta found that the boat’s many extras - a full camper/suntop and tonneau, wetbar, refrigerator — were a liability now. It was meant to be a pleasure cruiser, not an escape boat. Still, the craft propelled through the water with immense power and strength. Giulietta thought that perhaps she could use the sheer size of thie boat to her advantage.
Bond shot past two police boats that immediately sounded alarms and gave chase behind the bizarre arrowhead-shaped green vessel. Police car sirens were already wailing along the embankment; some emergency vehicles headed toward the SIS building, others following the boat chase from the shore.
There were a surprising number of boats on the Thames. The cigar girl weaved in and out, almost ramming a small speedboat in the process. Bond was losing ground, but in a bid to keep pace, he corralled the boat into a hair-raising short cut, shooting underneath a pier. He was barely able to manoeuvre the boat under it, but luckily he emerged even closer to his prey.
Enough is enough, the girl thought. She killed the motor, moved to the back of the boat and pulled a tarpaulin off a rear- mounted machine gun. She snapped on the belt, took aim at Bond and fired.
The Q Boat continued at full speed, now up to nearly seventy knots. The bullets bounced off the chobam armour plating that Bond knew covered the surface. He set his jaw and kept going, heading straight for her.
The girl remained calm and cool, shooting with precision. Why weren’t the bullets penetrating? He was getting closer . . . closer . . .
Her eyes widened when she realised his boat was not going to stop. She let out a small scream and hit the deck as Bond steered his boat right over the machine gun and turret, using the girl's boat as a ramp. The Q Boat launched into the air, then dived, nose-first, into the Thames.
She raised herself in time to see Bond turning the little powerhouse to close in for the kill. She scrambled to the helm, fired the engine again, and sped toward Tower Bridge, which was just beginning to open to allow for the passage of a small freighter.
Bond lagged behind, impeded by the influx of heavy traffic on the water. He watched helplessly as her boat was lost in the distance. Desperate, he looked around him and saw that a shore-side fish market was not far to his left. Gritting his teeth, he cranked the wheel and veered off, up a slip way and onto the embankment. The ingenuity of the Q Boat design allowed it to hydroplane on the pavement, propelling him through the market and into a busy London street. Pedestrians screamed and jumped out of the way as he wrestled with the controls, jetting off the street and straight toward a riverside restaurant full of people.
The boat crashed through the side of the restaurant, sending diners leaping in every direction. Waiters shouted at him, but before they knew what had happened, Bond’s boat had sprung out over a balcony and splashed down once more into the Thames.
She was back in his sights.
Giulietta turned back, amazed that Bond had managed to overtake her. She bore down and kept going.
The racing boats sliced through an armada of lazy, overloaded barges, barely missing one and sending a small tidal wave over another. Then they were at an even pace. Giulietta attempted to force her way past him, but Bond punched some buttons on the console of the Q Boat and released a set of catapulting flame canisters. They shot out ahead, creating a massive wall of fire in front of them.
Giulictta swerved her boat out of the way just in time and was forced to turn toward the very edge of the river. She knew the chase was nearly over and that she had lost, but then she saw the huge, colourful hot air balloon looming in the sky in front of her.
Their boats were now only yards away from the Millennium Dome. A crowd of people was gathered around the balloon, which was apparently about to launch. She skidded her vessel to a stop at the nearby pier and quickly scrambled out.
A flamboyant, wealthy celebrity was preparing to climb into the basket of the balloon. He waved to the crowd and smiled for the cameras, but Giulietta pushed through and leapt into the basket.
‘Hey!’ the man shouted, but she shoved him away. In one swift move, she cranked open the gas nozzles and the balloon rose with surprising speed.
Bond steered his craft toward a slipway adjacent to the pier, punched a button, and shot into the air. The crowd below watched with open mouths and unbelieving amazement.
The Q Boat sailed through the air just beneath the rising balloon. With split second precision, Bond reached up and grabbed one of the ropes dangling from the balloon. The boat fell away, hitting the ground and erupting into a ball of flame. The crowd screamed and began to disperse. Few, though, could take their eyes off the man who was now being carried precariously through the air.
The balloon soared higher and higher. Giulietta pulled a Beretta from a holster at her side and fired over the side of the basket. Bond swung back and forth underneath, like a pendulum, avoiding the bullets and praying that she didn’t get lucky. He strained to pull himself upward as the arc of his swing under the basket provided cover.
Giulietta continued to fire but stopped when she heard the rumbling noise approaching the balloon. Looking up, she was terrified to see three Westland Lynx police helicopters closing in on her.
Bond was getting closer to the bottom of the basket.
Giulietta pulled a knife from a sheath on her ankle and considered going for Bond’s rope. Instead, since the helicopters were looming, she decided there was only one alternative.
Bond’s arm appeared over the rim of the basket. He looked up just in time to see the girl slash one of the gas hoses. A loud hiss drowned out all other noise as the balloon filled not with hot air, but with gas. As she put her hand on the flame regulator valve, Bond realized what she was planning to do.
‘Stop!’ he shouted. ‘Don't! I can protect you!’
The brunette beauty simply looked at Bond and gave him a sad smile.
‘Not from him,’ she said.
She pulled on the regulator. Bond pushed himself away from the basket as a four foot lick of flame shot up into the balloon. He plummeted downward as the balloon exploded in a massive fireball, taking Giulictta the cigar girl with it. The police helicopters swerved out of the way just in time, avoiding further disaster.
Bond fell with a spectacular thudding bounce onto the roof of the Millennium Dome, landing hard on his left shoulder. He slid uncontrollably down the slope of the dome as scraps of the burning balloon rained down all around. A gutter eventually broke his fall.
Sitting up, he winced in scaring pain and held onto his injured shoulder. He gazed at the massive smoke cloud in the sky, cursing the foolish girl and his own failure to stop her from destroying herself.
Bond also swore silently at the mystery man behind the blatant attempt to attack MI6 on its home turf. This time, he had gone too far.
03 - Elektra
The memorial service was held at Sir Robert King’s massive country estate near the shores of Loch Lomond, the largest freshwater lake in Britain. Located eighteen miles north of Glasgow and the River Clyde and straddling the geological fault that separates the Highlands from the Lowlands, the lake’s beauty has attracted celebrated writers down the centuries.
On this sad occasion mourners from all over the world were drawn to Loch Lomond. They were the mighty and the powerful, the rich and famous ... all dressed in black.
A nineteenth-century chapel in the grounds of the estate was the site of the service. The funeral was a grand, solemn affair, complete with bagpipe lament, sincere tributes by friends and associates, and even a message from the Queen.
James Bond, his left arm in a sling, was slightly late arriving. He had driven his Aston Martin DB5 to Scotland at breakneck speed, was waved through the heavily guarded checkpoint at the front of the estate, and arrived just as the mourners were filing out of the chapel. He slip
ped into the throng and moved a few steps behind Miss Moneypenny, who was with Bill Tanner and Charles Robinson, M’s Chief of Staff and top analyst, respectively.
When the breathtakingly beautiful young woman appeared in the doorway of the chapel, all eyes were drawn to her. She
was tall and shapely, had shoulder-length brown hair, piercing brown eyes, and a pouty, soft mouth. Bond was immediately mesmerised by her. although he had seen photographs, he had never viewed the girl in person. She walked through the crowd, head high, like a young Jacqueline Kennedy, dispensing solace and consolation to those around her. She was clearly the centre of attention.
Robinson, a young black man who had joined MI6 only two years ago, whispered to Moneypenny, ‘I couldn’t help but notice that young woman during the service.’
Bond moved next to him. ‘King’s daughter. Elektra.’
Robinson’s expression said it all. She was indeed beautiful.
Elektra King was in her late twenties, but she had the manner of a woman who was ten years older. Behind the brown eyes was a sense that she had been to hell and back and lived to tell about it. There was a profound sadness there, and Bond knew that this was not just because she had lost her father.
He couldn't keep his eyes off her as she went from person to person, kissing a cheek, accepting a hug . . . and when she embraced M, Bond felt a sense of responsibility and pain.
M put her arm around Elektra and began walking with her, just the two of them. As M had been close to Sir Robert, it seemed only natural that she was protective and something of a maternal figure to the girl, who had lost her own mother years ago to cancer.
Bond watched them move toward the shore of the lake. Inexplicably, the feeling of guilt gave way to one of apprehension, and he didn’t know why.
That afternoon, the entourage from MI6 drove to Castle Thane, SIS’s remote operations centre in Scotland. Originally built in 1220 by Alexander II as a defence against the Vikings, the castle subsequently became a stronghold of the Mackenzies of Kintail (later the Earls of Seaforth) who installed the
MacRaes as hereditary keepers. It had been destroyed in 1719 whilst acting as a garrison for Spanish troops fighting for the Jacobite cause on behalf of the 5th Earl of Seaforth, and restoration work wasn't performed until two hundred years later. Shortly after the old M’s retirement SIS purchased a wing that was now off limits to tourists, complete with a private, heavily guarded entrance. The current M felt a certain kinship with Scotland and had spearheaded the deal with the government. As she had settled in to her job as head of MI6 over the last few years, M exerted more and more authority over the way things were done at headquarters. One of the recent changes she had made was establishing the ability to be mobile. She had grown weary of London and had on many occasions looked for excuses to be elsewhere. Now, with the remote operations centre in Scotland, she was free to come and go as she pleased, dragging her staff with her.
M had called the briefing for the afternoon of the funeral, knowing full well that if SIS were going to act on Sir Robert’s assassination, they had to do it quickly. Every available Double-0 agent was present, including Bond, as well as Tanner, Robinson, Moneypenny, and other important members of staff. They sat in a vast stone room that was dominated by a huge, sparkling chandelier, as well as electronic equipment that looked decidedly out of place in the historic building. Every agent in the room, save for Bond, had a briefing packet on the desk in front of them.
Tanner’s voice echoed in the chamber. ‘Our analysts have worked round the clock to determine exactly what happened in London. There was very little for MI5 to work with after the explosion. Their forensics team found traces of the bag of money, and performed tests to determine that the cash had been dipped in urea, dried and packed tight. In effect, a highly compacted fertiliser bomb.’ Tanner registered a nod at Bond. ‘Having handled the money, the water on Double-0 Seven’s hands - when he touched the ice in M’s office — started a chemical reaction. That’s what tipped him off to the bomb’s composition.’
Bond reflected on the bizarre moment when he had felt the sizzling sensation and saw the whisky boiling in the tumbler. If only he had noticed it a minute or two earlier . . .
Tanner continued, ‘How the explosive was set off was a matter of speculation until we found a transmitter in the woman’s boat. What we think happened was that the metal anti-counterfeiting strip on one of the notes had been replaced with magnesium, which acted as the detonator.’
He picked up King’s lapel pin, which was now blackened, fused and melted to expose electronics beneath. ‘King wore a lapel pin like this. He called it the “Eye of the Glens”, and it’s apparently some kind of heirloom. He had had it forever. A good luck charm of some sort. Obviously, it’s not the original. Kings real Eye of the Glens had been switched for this copy. We were very lucky that MI5 were able to find this piece of evidence amidst the . . . mess. It contained a radio receiver/ transmitter that triggered the blast. In other words, the girl set off the bomb that killed him with the counterpart to the transmitter that we found in the boat she left behind on the Thames. All she had to do was turn it on and point the antenna at the SIS building. The signal activated the receiver in King’s lapel pin. The pin then transmitted an electronic signal to the magnesium strip in the money’
A photograph of Giulietta the cigar girl appeared on the screen.
‘She was identified as Giulietta da Vinci, an Italian national who was on Interpol’s list of known terrorists operating in the Mediterranean. We have no further information on the woman. We don’t know who she was working for.’
Robinson stood beside Tanner and said, ‘We know it was someone close to King who switched his pin. Our only lead committed suicide in that balloon. Given the size of King’s organisation, it could be anyone. Anywhere.’ He turned to M and nodded, indicating that he and Tanner were finished.
M stood and took a moment to look at her people. Everyone in the room felt the coming harsh words even before she spoke.
‘This will not stand,’ she said firmly. She allowed this to sink in, then continued. ‘We will not be terrorised ... by cowards who would murder an innocent man . . . and use us as a tool.’
Her eyes scanned the room. ‘You each have an assignment. We will find the people who committed this atrocity. We will hunt them, we will track them, we will follow them — to the far corners of the earth if need be — and we will bring them to justice’
She waited a beat, held her head high, then turned on her heels and left the room.
The other agents opened their briefing packets. Bond looked around him, realising that he was the odd man out. As Tanner walked past, Bond stopped him.
‘Bill . . .?’
Tanner motioned to the sling. ‘Sorry, James. M says you’re off the active duty list until you’re cleared by medical.’
Bond made an expression that questioned the wisdom of the decision. Tanner held up his hands as if to say that there was nothing he could do about it, then followed M out of the room.
Bond sat there a moment, watching his peers reading the material intently. Well! he thought. He would just have to get medical to clear him. And he knew just how to do it.
Bond refused to tease Doctor Molly Warmflash about her name, but the attractive young SIS medical officer certainly lived up to it. Ever since the firm hired her three months ago, she had become the butt of coundess jokes among the male population at headquarters. The problem was that she encouraged them. She was a flirt and enjoyed it. She had specifically chatted up Bond on several occasions, making it clear that she would like to examine him in much more detail than was appropriate in a professional environment. Bond wondered how long a girl like her would last in the organisation, but so far she had also proven herself to be quite capable when it came to medical matters.
Doctor Warmflash was blonde, petite and curvy. Her stethoscope didn’t merely hang around her neck - it jutted straight out and then dangled like a medal she might ha
ve won for an athletic event. Her blue eyes were full of life, confident and bewitching.
Bond concentrated on all of these attributes as he sat on the examination table with his shirt off while she poked and prodded his left shoulder. He tried his best not to flinch, but it hurt like hell.
‘Dislocated collar bones take time, James,’ she said. ‘It’s no better than the last time I looked at it. If any more tendons slip . . ’
She knew he was resisting showing the pain. To prove a point, she thrust a finger into a particularly sensitive area.
‘Ow,’ Bond said, giving in to the discomfort.
Doctor Warmflash shook her head. ‘I'm afraid you’re going to be out of action for weeks.’
‘Molly,’ he said, ‘I need a clean bill of health. You have to clear me for duty.’
This time she placed her fingers gently on the scarred and bruised bone. ‘James, it wouldn’t really be . .
Bond laid a hand on her waist. ‘Ethical?’
She gave him a look.
‘Can’t we just skirt the issue?’ he asked with a smile.
She glanced down at his hand, then returned the smile. Her eyes gave away the temptation. ‘You’d have to promise to call me,’ she said after thinking about it — for a couple of seconds. She jabbed him in the shoulder again, causing him to wince. ‘This time’
Bond said. ‘Whatever the doctor orders . .
She moved closer to him. He could smell her perfume. ‘ - And I suppose if you stayed in constant contact -’
Taking that as an invitation, Bond pulled at the zipper on her skirt. He expertly flicked the clasp and the garment fell to the floor. She was wearing white silk panties, a garter belt and white stockings. The creamy flesh of her exposed thighs was begging to be caressed. He reached up and began to unbutton her blouse from the bottom. She helped him, working down from the top.
‘ -If you showed sufficient . . . stamina -’ she said, breathlessly.
The blouse was off, revealing magnificent breasts in a white, lace Wonderbra that seemed to be a size too small. Now the passion was insurmountable.
The World Is Not Enough jb-1 Page 3
