‘The things we do for England,’ he said to it. ‘Carry on.’
The distant sound of bagpipes caught Bond’s attention. He had a good idea where it was coming from.
He quietly moved along the ancient corridors and down a flight of stone stairs. He came upon a man in full Scottish regalia, blaring away, rather badly.
‘Get on with it’ a familiar voice commanded.
The man in the kilt dropped the pipe from his mouth and simultaneously fired bullets from one pipe and a jet of flame from another. The target was a realistic dummy twenty feet away, which quickly became a molten, bullet-ridden mess.
‘I suppose we all have to pay the piper sometime, right, Q?’ Bond quipped.
‘Pipe down, Double-0 Seven,’ Major Boothroyd said, more annoyed than usual.
‘Was it something I said?’
‘No.’Boothroyd folded his arms. ‘Something you destroyed.’ It was then that Bond noticed the mangled Q Boat sitting in the middle of the laboratory.
‘My fishing boat,’ Boothroyd said. ‘For my retirement. Away from you.'
‘Had I known, I would have returned it in. . . what do you say . . . ‘pristine condition’?’
Boothroyd shuddered. ‘Grow up, Double-0 Seven.’
Q Branch never slept. There were always technicians working round the clock. Major Boothroyd, who was looking forward to the day he would finally retire, loathed leaving London for the remote Castle Thane. Nevertheless, when M called, naturally he came. He was tired and irritated.
‘Come over here. Let’s get this over with. It’s past my bedtime,’ he said. ‘I want you to meet the young man I'm grooming to follow me.’
He led Bond to a pool table which, with the press of a button, parted. The floor opened to reveal a rising platform and on it was a brand new battleship-grey BMW Z8 with a black convertible top. A man was loading a missile into one of the side grilles, but he didn’t notice that the tail of his white lab coat was caught in the door. When he realised it, he turned the wrong way to get out.
Bond and Boothroyd exchanged a look.
‘It helps if you open the door,’ Bond suggested, reaching for the handle and releasing the man.
The man turned to Bond and asked, imperiously, ‘And you might be . . .?’
‘This is Double-0 Seven,’ Boothroyd said.
‘If you’re Q,’ Bond said to Boothroyd, facetiously, ‘does that make him “R”?’ He knew full well, of course, that ‘Q’ stood for ‘Quartermaster’.
The Deputy controlled himself and said, ‘Ahh, yes. The legendary Double-0 Seven wit. I, of course, am laughing inside. But I dare say you’ve met your match in this machine.’ The man was very tall, had a high forehead and a moustache. Bond noticed the sunglasses in his pocket and took the liberty of examining them.
‘New model? Improved specs?’ he asked.
‘I thought you were on the inactive roster. Some kind of injury,’ the Deputy said.
Bond picked up the glasses and shrugged. ‘We’ll see about that.’ He motioned to the car. ‘Do go on.’
‘As I was saying. . ’ the Deputy said as he stepped around the car. ‘The absolute latest in intercepts and countermeasures. Titanium armour, a multi-tasking heads-up display, six beverage cup holders . . . All in all, rather stocked’
‘ “Fully loaded” I think is the term,’ Q said. ‘Why don’t you try on that coat for Double-0 Seven?’
The Deputy hesitated, then walked over to a table and began to put on a sleek, black jacket.
Boothroyd gestured to the sunglasses and said, ‘You’re right. New refinement. Sort of X-ray vision. For checking concealed weapons.’ He then led Bond to another table and handed him an Omega watch. ‘Your nineteenth, I believe? Try not to lose this one, all right? It has dual lasers and a miniature grappling hook with fifty feet of high-tensile filament, able to support eight hundred pounds’
Bond was impressed, slipping it on his wrist. They turned back to the Deputy, when he said, That’s odd.’
He was looking down at something on the jacket. ‘Somebody forgot to remove this tag . . .’ He yanked on it, and the jacket snapped abruptly to become an airbag. It enveloped him, impossibly ensnaring the man.
‘He seems well suited for the job,’ Bond said to Boothroyd. They moved out of the laboratory. Bond asked, ‘You’re not retiring anytime soon, are you, major?’
‘Pay attention, Double-0 Seven,’ Boothroyd said, looking at Bond with a hint of mischief in his eyes. ‘There are two things I’ve always tried to teach you. First: never let them see you bleed. ’
‘And second?’ Bond asked.
‘Always have an escape plan, the major said. A sudden whoosh of smoke enveloped Boothroyd as an ancient trap door in the wall opened behind him. When the smoke cleared, Q was gone.
The Research Department was a remote version of the recendy installed Visual Library at the London headquarters, a computerised encyclopedia on a grand scale. One merely had to punch in a topic and the Visual Library would find every file available on the subject and organise it into a cohesive multimedia presentation.
Bond wanted to look into the story of Elektra King’s kidnapping. As M had said, the story had disappeared from the news remarkably quickly. All he knew was that she had escaped and the kidnappers had been killed — except for the leader, who somehow got away.
He began by going over the history of Robert King’s rise to fame and fortune. The monitor displayed photographs, newspaper clippings, magazine articles and television snippets - all to do with King’s life and times. King Industries seemed to be always in the news, especially in the financial sections of the papers. The knighthood was covered extensively. The press had made a big deal out of his second marriage. The birth of their daughter, Elektra, had also been big news.
Bond turned his attention to information relating to Elektra. While her early life was not too detailed, there were the occasional reports of her growth into adulthood — a photo from her sixteenth birthday, a brief article on her going up to university and a small piece in The Tunes when she joined King Industries in hopes of following in her father’s footsteps in the family business. She had grown up all over the world, apparently - a boarding school in Paris, university in Scotland, summers and holidays in the Middle East with her mother’s family and later, at her father’s villa in A2erbaijan.
The next story, though, was the dominant one. It started with a newspaper headline that screamed, ‘ELEKTRA KING KIDNAPPED!’
Bond clicked on the ‘Police Files’ icon and found a Polaroid that had been sent to Robert King by the captors. It showed Elektra, savagely beaten, bruised, her ear bandaged. She was holding the newspaper with the ‘KIDNAPPED!’ headline. Beneath the photo, someone had scrawled the ransom figure - $5,000,000.
According to Elektra’s statement to the police, she had decided early on that she would risk her life to escape. At one point during the ordeal, she had kicked one of the kidnappers in the groin. While he was doubled up on the floor, she took his gun and shot him with it. She killed another captor and literally blasted her way out of the country cottage in Dorset where they had kept her hidden. Unfortunately, the leader of the team was not present at the time and had got away. Elektra had stumbled blindly to the main road, where a lorry driver had picked her up and taken her to a police station.
Bond clicked on the ‘Police Interview’ icon. Elektra appeared on the monitor, shaken, emotional, near hysterics. Her wounds had been treated, but she looked terrible. Tears ran down her face.
‘Tell me again how you got the gun’ the interrogator probed gently.
‘How many bloody times do I have to tell you?’ Elektra cried. ‘There was one guy who was trying to molest me . . . he came into my room . . . my cell. . . and tried to touch me.’
‘And this was at night?’
‘Early morning. The sun was just coming up, I think. It was up when I got out of the house’
‘And what happened?’
�
�Like I said before . . ’ she took a deep breath and began the story again. ‘I let him go just so far . . . so he would be over-confident. Then I kicked him hard in the crotch. When he doubled over on the floor, I pulled the gun away from him and shot him’
‘And then . . .’
‘I heard shouts and running. The others were coming to see what had happened. I aimed the gun at the door. As soon as it opened, I pulled the trigger’
‘And how many men were there?’
‘Two. I shot them both.’
‘What about the leader?’ the interrogator asked. ‘The one who escaped. Can you describe him?’
‘Bald. Dark eyes. He shouted,’ Elektra sobbed. ‘He shouted all the time . .
Touched, Bond froze the screen and lightly ran his fingers over Elektra’s still face, attempting to will the tears away. Such a beautiful girl ... it was a horrible . . .
Then a thought occurred to Bond. He flipped back to the Polaroid with the ransom figure. $5,000,000.
He reached into his pocket and removed his wallet. He took out the statement that the cigar girl had given to him in Bilbao. In all of the confusion after the explosion, Bond had completely forgotten about it. There it was, that strange number - $3,030,003.03. Something bristled at the back of his neck.
Bond tapped some keys, and the words EXCHANGE RATE - POUNDS TO DOLLARS appeared on the screen. He entered ‘3,030.003.03 POUNDS STERLING’ and hit RETURN.
The result was ‘5,000,000 US DOLLARS'. He stared at it a moment, contemplating what this might mean. He typed some more, and an MI6 screen appeared that read - ‘ELEKTRA KING. FILE 7634733’. He pressed RETURN and the monitor filled with the words ‘ACCESS DENIED'.
Bond frowned. He repeated the entire action and got the same result.
He sat back in the chair, perplexed. He fingered the Statement in his hands and came to the only conclusion that was possible.
Bond paced the floor outside the Briefing Room, debating with hiimself if he should do what he felt he must. She must know the complete story. Would she agree to share it with him?
Throwing caution to the wind, he rushed past Moneypenny without saying a word, opened the door and found M huddled with Tanner, Robinson and two other government officials.
She looked up. ‘Yes, Double-0 Seven?’
‘Tell me more about the kidnapping of Elektra King,’ he said.
M straightened, trying not to appear defensive. ‘I wasn’t aware you had an assignment on this case
‘I brought the money in that killed King.’
‘Don’t make this personal.’
‘I’m not. Are you?’ He paused a moment, then added, ‘You’re the only one who could seal her file. MI5 is handling the case? I think not.’
She hesitated a moment, then turned to Tanner and the others. ‘Would you excuse us?’
After they had left, she stared Bond down. ‘I will not tolerate insubordination, Double-0 Seven’
He shrugged, acknowledging that he had stepped over the line. He took a softer line, asking, ‘What happened?’
M looked away, obviously troubled. Then, she came out with it. ‘When Elektra King was kidnapped, her father tried to deal with it on his own. With no success’
Bond waited.
‘So he came to me,’ she said. ‘As you are aware, we do not negotiate with terrorists. And against every instinct in my heart - every emotion I have as a mother - I told him not to pay the ransom. I thought we had time on our side’
‘You used the girl as bait’
‘Yes’
‘You thought you could smoke out the kidnappers’
‘Once we learned who was behind it, yes’
Bond let the penny drop, and then said, ‘The amount of money in King’s case was the same as the ransom demand for his daughter.’ He handed her the statement and watched as she studied it. ‘It was a set up. Giving the money back. The sniper in Spain made sure I got out of that office alive because he wanted MI6 to deliver a bomb to King. It’s a message to MI6, M. Your terrorist is back’
She looked up at him, concern deep in her eyes. ‘Then we know who killed Double-0 Twelve . . . and Robert King.’
It was nearly midnight by the time they had re-assembled in the Briefing Room. Tanner and Robinson had rushed to put together the necessary audio/visual aids so that M could shift directions on the case.
The wall screen filled with the face of a slight, thin and wiry man. He was bald and had dark, cold eyes.
‘Victor Zokas,’ M said, ‘aka . . ’
‘Renard the Fox,’ Bond said. ‘The anarchist.’
Tanner picked up the briefing. ‘He was operating in Moscow in 1996, Pyongyang, North Korea before that, and he’s been spotted in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Iraq, Iran, Beirut and Cambodia.’
‘All the romantic vacation spots,’ Bond noted.
‘His only goal is chaos,’ the Chief of Staff continued. ‘Works as a freelancer. Has ties with the Russian Mafia.’ ‘He was the mastermind behind Elektra King’s kidnapping. After Sir Robert came to me,' M said, ‘I sent Double-0 Nine to kill Renard. Before he completed the mission, Elektra had escaped. A week later, our man caught up with the target in Syria. Put a bullet in his head.’ She paused for effect. ‘Apparently. the bullet is still there’
‘How did he survive?’ Bond asked.
Tanner punched a button on the control panel and a huge, transparent, holographic 3-D image of Renard’s skull appeared, floating in the centre of the room.
‘We thought he was dead,’ Tanner said. ‘We had closed the file on Renard and had mistakenly ignored two reports claiming that he had been seen in Afghanistan and Azerbaijan. Just an hour ago we received confirmation from our station in Turkey that Renard is indeed alive’
M nodded to Doctor Molly Warmflash who was standing nearby. She stepped out of the shadows to explain. ‘The Syrian doctor who saved Renard couldn’t get the bullet out, so Renard killed him’
Doctor Warmflash took over the controls and rotated the hologram. The bullet could be seen in the X-ray, just inside the right temple.
‘We got hold of the doctor’s X-rays of Renard’s skull. The bullet is moving through the medulla oblongata, killing off his senses. Touch, smell — I would imagine that he feels no pain. I would bet that many of his facial muscles are paralysed with Bell’s Palsy. But he can also probably push himself harder, longer than any normal man. The bullet will eventually kill him - but he’ll get stronger every day, until the moment he dies.’
M took over. ‘Robert is dead. MI6 is humiliated. Surely he has his revenge.’
‘Not quite,’ Bond said. ‘Renard had three enemies in that kidnapping. Sir Robert King, MI6 . . . and the one he hasn’t touched. Elektra. ’
M flinched at Bond’s frightening, but obviously correct, assumption. There’s another aspect to all this that I’m just beginning to realise,’ she said.
‘What is that?’
‘As heir to her father’s vast global oil empire - Elektra King is arguably the most powerful woman in the world.’
M let the enormity of that remark sink in as Miss Moneypenny handed her a file. M glanced at it, and then at Bond.
‘I see the good doctor lias cleared you,’ she said. ‘Notes you have “exceptional stamina”.’
Moneypenny threw a look to Doctor Warmflash’s skirt and saw that her slip was showing, slightly askew.
‘I’m sure she was moved by his dedication,’ Moneypenny said, brightly. To the job at hand.’
Doctor Warmflash picked up Moneypenny’s gaze and quickly adjusted her skirt. Bond noted this and looked away.
Thank you, Miss Moncypenny, doctor,’ M said.
After the two ladies left the room, Bond asked, ‘Where is Double-0 Nine? I’d like a word with him’
‘He’s in the Far East, on assignment. I assure you that anything he could tell you is in Renard’s file. If only his aim had been a little better’
‘And what about Double-0 Twelve?’
&nb
sp; ‘As the case now appears to be related to Sir Robert’s murder, I’ll see that you get the file on that, too. Double-0 Seven, I want you to go to Elektra. She’s taken over the construction of her father’s oil pipeline from the Caspian Sea.
Find out who switched that pin. If your instincts arc right, Renard will be back — and Elektra is the next target.’
‘The worm on the hook again,’ Bond said. ‘Protect the girl, but kill Renard?’
M gave Bond a silent acknowledgement with her eyes that the latter deed was understood.
‘Elektra doesn’t need to know the same man may be after her. Don’t frighten her.’
A shadow operation’
M narrowed her eyes at Bond. ‘Remember - shadows stay behind - or in front - but never on top.’
She knew him all too well.
04 - Blood and Oil
James Bond picked up the BMW Z8 in Turkey then drove East until he came to the southern range of the Caucasus, which forms the border between Turkey and Iran, and the former Soviet satellites of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. The gigantic snow-capped peak of the volcano Mount Aergius floated above a layer of cloud, providing an overall effect that was breathtaking.
The Z8 had evolved naturally from the legendary BMW 507. It had been shipped as promised by the overly- efficient Q Branch Deputy (he also shipped the Aston- Martin, as he was sure 007 would ultimately need a backup). A two-seater open sports car with a sleek engine compartment and streamlined body design, the Z8 came equipped with a six-speed transmission and a 400-horse- power V-8 engine. Bond was so invigorated by the feel of its power that he had to continually remind himself to slow down.
After a while, the Z8 entered an area of desolate oil fields. The road snaked along an oil pipe that would ultimately lead Bond to his destination. He was all alone on the road, so he pushed the car to its limit. Still, he had a nagging feeling that he was being watched. He remained alert and vigilant, constantly checking his mirrors and heads-up display that would indicate the presence of other vehicles within a ten-mile radius. So far, though, he might as well have been the only person in the deserted valley.
The pipeline eventually moved into a dense, wooded area The car roared through the pines, keeping with the oil pipe. It wouldn’t be far now.
Bond Movies 06 - The World Is Not Enough Page 4
