Bond Movies 06 - The World Is Not Enough

by Raymond Benson

  He paused just long enough to take one of the Havanas from the box on the cart and slip it into his pocket.

  Bond ran through the open window and leaped. He held on tightly to the case with one hand and gripped the rope with the other. In the office, the groggy henchman came to his senses in time to see the rope tied to his ankles running out of the window. He clung to the leg of the desk and held on for dear life as the rope went taut.

  Bonds fall suddenly jerked to a stop.

  Then the leg of the desk broke off in the thug’s hand and Bond’s weight dragged him across the Oriental rugs toward the window. He crashed into the wall just as the police burst through the door with their guns drawn.

  Outside, Bond slowly descended to the street on the rope, unwrapped it and dropped the remaining ten feet to the pavement. He rounded the corner to blend in with the lunchtime business crowds - just another man with a case, in a suit and tie.

  As he walked, though, Bond glanced at the building where the cigar girl had fled. Why would someone up there want him to get out of that room alive?

  While pondering this strange turn of events, he decided that perhaps he should take in some contemporary art after all. As more police poured into the bank building, Bond slipped into the front of the Guggenheim museum and disappeared. He was back in London before midnight.

  Giulietta entered the huge, high-ceilinged room in the building across from the Swiss bank. She swallowed hard, for she was terribly afraid of the man who was standing on the balcony overlooking the city.

  He was not a large man. He was slight, thin and wiry, but there was no doubt that he could be quick on his feet. His cold eyes were as dark as anthracite. He might have been handsome at one time, but the raised, red scar on the right temple distorted the shape of his shiny, bald head. It was an ugly, slick wound that throbbed and shifted with the slightest facial expression, like an insect living just beneath the skin. His right eye drooped slightly, deadened. His mouth turned down on the same side and he was unable to smile. As a result, he was quite literally a man with two half-faces. It was a condition an unfortunate Syrian doctor had called Bell’s Palsy.

  The girl approached him, but he didn’t move. A gas- operated Belgian FN FAL sniper rifle with an attached laser sight was propped against the doorframe. Binoculars on a tripod were trained on the rooftop below, where Bilbao policemen were now inspecting the shattered office windows.

  ‘Renard . . ’ Giulietta whispered.

  The man seemed lost in thought. He rubbed and pinched his trigger finger, attempting to find a single nerve ending that might respond. He even brought the hand up to his mouth and bit the fleshy area between his thumb and forefinger. As always, he felt nothing.

  Then he turned and inspected her. Finally, he said, ‘What’s his name?’

  The girl had lost the ability to speak. Renard the Fox might very well kill her then and there.

  ‘Our friend from MI6,’ he said, quietly. ‘What’s his name?’

  Giulietta swallowed and finally found her voice. ‘James Bond.’

  Renard nodded as if he knew all about the Briton. ‘Ah. One of M’s more resourceful tin soldiers’

  ‘He ... he could identify me,’ she said.

  Renard reached out and touched her cheek. She tensed at the cold tips of his fingers.

  The man looked at the girl in front of him. She was attractive, certainly, but he felt no desire for her. She was merely an expendable soldier.

  ‘Then I suppose a death is in order,’ he said. He paused long enough for her eyes to widen, then dropped his hand. ‘His. When the time is right, I trust you won’t fail’

  She sighed with relief. He was giving her another chance. Renard left the balcony and took a bottle of wine that was sitting on the bar of the suite. He filled two glasses and handed one to her.

  ‘Until then, let us toast this James Bond.’ He raised the glass. ‘We're in his hands now’

  02 - Fireworks on the Thames

  The Westland Lynx helicopter picked up Bond and made the short hop to central London, swooping over the spectacular Millennium Dome as it followed the river. Called the ‘dustbin lid’ by some critics, the dome was the largest in the world, having been constructed on the North Greenwich peninsula, bounded on three sides by the River Thames. As Bond looked at the Teflon-coated glass-covered structure from the window, he was reminded of a giant robotic beetle with antennae that might have come from an episode of Doctor Who. Part of a 300-acre former gasworks, the site had been derelict for more than two decades until it was sold to English Partnerships in 1997. Two Wembley stadiums could fit inside the dome which is tall enough to house Nelson’s Column, and big enough to accommodate forty thousand people. More significantly, the site was chosen because the Prime Meridian cuts across the west side, which is about two and a half kilometres from historic Greenwich.

  As far as Bond was concerned, it added yet another eyesore to the scenery around the Thames. Another, of course, was the gaudy, layered-cake-like building that was the headquarters of SIS in London.

  The Lynx banked along the snaking river and landed near the river entrance of the SIS building. Carrying the money

  case, Bond disembarked, nodded at the police officer standing guard at the private entrance, then entered the secret, high- tech world that was MI6. Although all the security personnel knew Bond by sight, it was standard operating procedure that every precaution be taken. He passed through the metal detector, which clearly indicated that he was carrying his usual weaponry. An attentive staff member took the case from Bond and set it on a table. Bond opened it and began to scoop out the packs of cash. He wistfully flicked his finger through the last wad, then threw it down with the rest as a blue light scanned the money in three dimensions. Bond watched as the money was bundled into a clear plastic bag, sealed and placed on a tray that was wheeled through a series of barred enclosures into a secure room. Bond handed the empty case to an attendant.

  ‘Have this checked. See what you can get off it,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir’

  The money would be thoroughly checked for fingerprints and clues to its origins before it was handed over to Sir Robert. As there was a lot of it, the process could take some time.

  Bond took the lift to his floor, nodded at his temporary personal assistant, and entered his private office. He quickly perused his post and messages, then made his way back to the lift. Upstairs, he found Miss Moneypenny standing at one of the large filing cabinets in her outer office. Bond walked in with a smile, his arm hiding something behind his back.

  She brightened at the sight of him. ‘James. Brought me a souvenir from your trip? Chocolates? An engagement ring?’

  Bond revealed his hand, producing the cigar he had taken from the bank office in Bilbao. It was now inside a rather large, phallic tube. He stood it up on her desk.

  ‘Thought you might enjoy one of these,' he said.

  ‘How romantic,’ she said, shoving the filing drawer closed. ‘I know exactly where to put it’

  With a flourish, she tossed the cigar into the dustbin. Bond sighed. ‘Ah, Moneypenny. That’s the story of our relationship. Close, but no cigar.’

  She scowled at him as M’s voice boomed through the intercom box on the desk.

  ‘I hate to tear you away from affairs of state, Double-0 Seven. Would you mind coming in?’

  Bond cleared his throat and replied, ‘Right away, ma'am.’ As he walked toward the padded door, Moneypenny whispered, ‘Sure you don’t want to give her the cigar, James?’ He shot her a look as he opened the door and entered the inner sanctum.

  Bond was surprised to find that M was not alone. A distinguished-looking gentleman was with her, and Bond recognised him immediately.

  M sat behind the desk, laughing at something he had just said. Two glasses and an open bottle of malt whisky were between them. She regained her composure and gestured to them both. ‘James Bond, Sir Robert King’

  King moved to shake hands with
an easy, patrician smile. He was handsome, immaculately groomed, and appeared to be in his sixties.

  ‘Ah!’ he said. ‘The man who retrieved my money. Excellent job. Can’t thank you enough.’

  The man’s grip was warm and dry. Bond couldn’t help but notice the shiny lapel pin King was wearing. It looked like the glass eye of a snake and was possibly very valuable.

  King turned to M and teased, ‘Be careful, my dear. I might try to steal him from you.’

  Bond was put off by the man’s presumptuousness. ‘Construction’s not exactly my specialty,’ he said with little humour.

  ‘Quite the opposite, in fact,’ M couldn’t resist quipping. King smiled at Bond. ‘Oh, it’s the oil business that makes our world go round now, Mister Bond.’ He then turned

  and moved behind the desk in order to kiss M on the cheek.

  ‘Give my best to your family,’ he said.

  ‘We’ll speak soon,’ M said.

  He then bowed slightly to them both and left the room.

  ‘Old friend, you say?’ Bond asked.

  ‘We read law at Oxford together,’ she explained as she stood and gathered the empty glasses and bottle of whisky. ‘Always knew he’d conquer the world.’ Before putting the glasses away, she had second thoughts. ‘Care for a drink?’

  ‘Thank you’

  She took a clean glass from a shelf behind the desk and poured whisky into it, handed it to Bond, then refilled her own glass.

  ‘He’s a man of great integrity,’ M said, raising her glass to Bond.

  ‘Who buys stolen reports for three million pounds.’

  She frowned. ‘Contrary to what you may believe, Double-

  0 Seven, the world is not populated by madmen who can hollow out volcanoes, fill them with big-breasted women, and threaten the world with nuclear annihilation’

  Bond grinned at the irony of her remark as he stepped over to the ice bucket. He picked up two cubes and plopped them into his tumbler.

  ‘It only takes one,'he said.

  M ignored the quip and walked around her desk and assumed a relaxed position on the edge of it. ‘Any leads on the sniper?’

  ‘No. The hotel room was clean. Professional job.’

  M pondered this as she took a sip from her drink.

  Bond noticed a report on the desk that was stamped with a strange seal. He took a closer look and saw that it was from the Russian Atomic Energy agency.

  ‘Is that the stolen report?’ he asked.

  M nodded and handed it to him. Bond set down his tumbler and began to thumb dirough the document.

  ‘Yes. Classified, from the Russian Atomic Energy Department. All it does is assess the computer bug threat on the nuclear arsenal in the former Soviet Republics’

  Neither of them noticed that the ice in Bond’s tumbler was beginning to fizz.

  ‘What would King want this for?’ he asked.

  ‘As I told you before, it wasn’t what he thought it was. He was led to believe the document was a secret report that identified the terrorists who’ve attacked a new oil pipeline he’s building in the region. Kazakhstan . . . Azerbaijan . . . that part of the world. He's had quite a bit of trouble with bands of local tribesmen who get hold of explosives and vandalise his operations. He thought the report would pinpoint who the real culprits are and he could go to the proper authorities with it. But when he discovered the report concerned nuclear weapons, he turned it over to me, immediately. It turns out the thing’s worthless. It’s nothing new to us.’

  The ice continued to fizz, unnoticed.

  ‘Interesting,’ Bond said. ‘So Sir Robert gave this worthless report to MI6, and then we received a call about the money?’ ‘That’s right,’ M said, a bit perturbed that Bond was going back over details. ‘We received a message that Sir Robert could have his money back. All we had to do was send someone to Spain to pick it up from a Swiss banker. We sent you.’

  ‘It’s all a bit of a mystery, isn't it? Everyone in that bank office died, except the girl. And me’

  ‘Remember, you’re the one who drew a weapon first. You might have come out of there with the money and without an incident. I’ve already lost one Double-0 this month, I don’t need to lose another.’

  Bond ignored the reprimand. ‘But why give back the money in the first place? It doesn’t explain why someone wanted me to get out of that office in Bilbao alive . . . with the cash . . .’ He paused for a moment, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together. It was then that he felt the strange bubbling where he had touched the ice. His eyes darted to the tumbler. The ice was boiling!

  What the hell? he thought. He sniffed his fingers, identified the smell, then dropped the report on the desk. ‘King! The money! M, it’s a bomb!’

  Bond was halfway out of the door when M stabbed at the intercom. ‘Moneypenny! Stop King!’

  Sir Robert and an MI6 aide were unaware of the sudden alarm as they walked toward the security area of the building. King’s only thoughts were on the money, which was still lying on the tray, wrapped in plastic. Security bars were between him and the cash. An official produced a bag and moved toward it, saying, ‘We haven’t finished checking it yet, sir.’

  Sir Robert waved him away. ‘I'm sure it’s all there. If you can’t trust MI6, whom can you trust?’

  The official hesitated a moment, then decided not to argue with one of the more powerful men in Britain. He placed the money inside a canvas bag, opened the gate and handed the cash to King.

  ‘Thank you,’ the tycoon said. He heaved the bag over his shoulder. ‘Quite heavy, isn’t it?’ he said to the aide and proceeded to walk alone into the corridor leading outside.

  Bond, rushing through the building, took a short cut through the Q Branch laboratory, where Major Boothroyd and his technicians were busy working on a strange, half-built boat suspended over a water tank. Q was startled as Bond ran past them.

  ‘Where’s the fire, Double-0—?’ Boothroyd asked, but Bond was already gone.

  He rounded a comer, took a flight of stairs three steps at a time, and bolted into the security area. ‘Stop! King!’ he shouted.

  But the call was muffled where King was walking. His mind was so focused on the money that even he didn't hear the serene hum which his lapel pin began to emit.

  Bond reached the lower corridor’s open doorway just as a massive explosion rocked the building, and all hell broke loose. Fire blasted out of the corridor, knocking Bond back and to the floor. The entire structure shook for a moment as a lower tier gave way, its roof and a wall collapsing amidst the smoke and flames.

  Giulietta the cigar girl sat in a Sunseeker Hawk 34 at the edge of the Thames, eyeing the destruction that was caused by the little device that Renard had created. The fools at MI6 had fallen for it, hook, line and sinker. She picked up the FN FAL sniper rifle and lined up the infra-red telescopic sight on the billow of dark smoke that was pouring out of the hole in the building.

  Just as Renard had predicted, James Bond stumbled out of the wreckage, peering around and attempting to find the source of the mayhem. She took careful ami and activated the laser.

  Bond coughed and rubbed smoke from his eyes, shaken from the blast but unharmed. But Sir Robert and a small section of SIS headquarters had vanished in the blink of an eye. The culprits had to be nearby, watching.

  He waved the smoke away and then noticed the wand of red light pointing at his chest. Instinctively he dived for cover just as the powerful, high velocity bullets blanketed the area. He crawled behind a stone wall, drew the Walther and prepared to return fire. He scanned the area but the bullets continued to fly over his head. Bond snaked on his belly a little further out so that he could see more clearly.

  She was on a sleek high-tech boat, approximately a hundred yards from the shore. He immediately recognised her as the girl from Bilbao.

  Realising that she had Med to kill the MI6 agent, Giulietta’s only goal now was to get out of there alive. She dropped the rifle and gunned the engines,
speeding off down the river.

  Determined, Bond jumped up and raced back into the wreckage and chaos that the building had become. Q was not going to like it, but there was only one thing to do.

  The Q Branch boat had been lowered into the tank, temporarily forgotten, and now Major Boothroyd and his men were busy checking reports of damage, sounding alarms and sealing off passages. They didn't notice James Bond as he ran into the room and leapt into the boat.

  Bond stared at the mystifying number of buttons and gadgets on the console, gambled and pressed a red button. The engine roared, and the boat shot out of its berth.

  Boothroyd looked up in horror. ‘Wait! It's not finished!’

  The vessel, a one-man sprint boat that was compact, slim- lined and built from scratch, soared out of the SIS rubble and into the Thames. The craft was lightweight and very sensitive to Bond’s guidance. It spun around in the water, out of control, but Bond gripped the steering wheel and pulled it hard to the right. The boat levelled out, but its momentum nearly caused it to capsize. It took Bond approximately twenty seconds to get the feel of the controls, and then he steered the boat in the direction of the escaping assassin. He revved the engine and tore through thie water after her.

  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.