James Bond, The Spy Who Loved Me

by Christopher Wood

  ‘I have seen that symbol,’ she said. The light of battle shone in her eyes.

  ‘Looks like a bishop’s mitre, sir.’ That was Belling’s contribution.

  M snorted. ‘Perhaps we should make some discreet inquiries at the Vatican.’

  Bond screwed up his eyes. The girl was right. The symbol was, if not familiar, one he had seen before somewhere. Two upright, overlapping ovals, the uppermost with a notch, standing on a truncated isosceles triangle. The whole traversed by rows of zigzag lines. What did it remind him of?

  ‘Or a fish, sir,’ said Belling.

  Anya slapped her hand down on the table. ‘Stromberg! That is the symbol of the Stromberg Shipping Line.’

  Of course! Bond kicked himself for not getting there first. Sigmund Stromberg. A man who had come from nowhere to build up a huge merchant fleet in a matter of years; one of the first to see the commercial advantages of moving huge quantities of oil in super-tankers and now owner of four of them with an individual dead weight in excess of four hundred and fifty thousand tons. A man who was reputed to be ruthless in his business dealings and suspected of involvement in the recent spate of tankers that had broken up in American waters - all of them belonging to rival operators. The Stromberg symbol was a squat fish standing on its tail.

  ‘Well dene.’ Bond extended grudging congratulations like the losing captain in a prep-school rugby match.

  ‘Interesting,’ mused M. ‘But what about this “Oratory”? Does he support any religious foundations?’

  Anya’s nostrils flared. ‘Like a good capitalist, he supports only himself.’

  Bond tried to concentrate. Oratory, oratory. What the devil did it mean? Anya was right. Stromberg had never shown any signs of altruism or desire to become a philanthropist. Unless one counted his report interest in oceanography. Bond remembered reading something about him setting up a Marine Research Laboratory in the Mediterranean. That was probably as near as he - Eureka!

  ‘Laboratory!’ Bond almost shouted the word. ‘Not “oratory”, laboratory! The first syllable was obscured by the blueprint. Stromberg has a marine-rescarch laboratory somewhere. Corsica, I think.’

  ‘Sardinia,’ said Anya shortly. She hesitated and then a tremulous half smile spread across her lovely, tilting lips as she looked at Bond. ‘Well done.’

  ‘Ye-es,’ said M, looking from Bond to Anya before turning towards Nikitin. ‘Well done, indeed. Gratifying to discover that new era of Anglo-Soviet cooperation of which you spoke so heart-rendingly bearing fruit in such a short time.’ He tapped burning shards of tobacco from his upturned pipe into a large stone ashtray. ‘It augurs well for the future.’

  Nikitin nodded slowly, his eyes meting out death-sentences. M turned back to Bond and Anya. ‘I suggest you proceed to Sardinia or Corsica, or wherever Stromberg’s marine laboratory is located, with all possible speed.’

  Bond drew away from the challenging lapis lazuli of Anya’s eyes. ‘In what capacity, sir?’

  M tapped his pipe like an auctioneer bringing down his gavel for the final time. ‘Well, all things considered, there seems to be only one capacity - that of man and wife.’

  The Drowned Volcano

  Anya’s blind fingers traced a path across the rough, hot stone and closed about the supple plastic. Its tapered haft settled into the palm of the hand and her thumb and first finger tightened against the minuscule serrations on the cap. An anti-clockwise twist and the thumb flicked languidly until the cap dropped to the stone with a sound that wobbled into silence. With eyes still closed, she slid her left hand forward and pressed the nose of the Piz-bruin against its palm. Pressure from three fingers and the tube gave a small, sibilant hiss and relinquished a teaspoonful of warm, liquid cream. Anya replaced the tube beside the cap and pressed her hands together. She felt the cream escape between her fingers and began to rotate her hands, spreading the sun tan lotion evenly. Then she drew herself up on the mattress and began to massage the cream into her naked breasts and shoulders. They were good breasts, there was no escaping the fact. They were firm and ripe, and they stood rather than hung. The aureoles of the nipples were a rich, chocolate brown and the nipples themselves jutted out expectantly like plump, juicy antennae.

  Anya saw the line where Black Sea honey gave way to Mediterranean bronze and laid a fresh knout of guilt across her back. Was it so little time ago that she had laid under another sun and thought about another man? She looked down at the soft, glistening flesh undulating beneath her fingers and withdrew her hand abruptly. Her behaviour was not kulturny. She was not conducting herself like a responsible Soviet citizen with a senior position in one of the most important government departments. But what in her life before the Crimean experience had prepared her for the sybaritic indulgences that the West lavished upon its favoured bourgeoisie? Not her one- room flat on the sixth floor of the Sadovaya-Chemogriazskay Ulitz, the women’s barracks of the State Security Departments, or her monthly salary of two thousand roubles. Nor serving with the rank of Major in the dreaded K.G.B. It must be this sudden role-reversal that had unbalanced her. She must take a grip on herself. Instead of baking her self- indulgent body an unnecessary brown she should be reading an improving work. Something by Engels, for instance. She was shamelessly ill-versed in his writings. Angrily, she pulled her severe one-piece bathing costume over her breasts and slipped the straps across her slim shoulders. She was not to know, that by its very simplicity - and because it was slightly too small for her - the costume made her body seem almost more erotic than it was when naked.

  Anya rose to her feet, screwed the top firmly back on the tube of Piz-bruin and folded up the sun mattress. She left the balcony and entered the large cool bedroom, closing the sliding glass door behind her to maintain the air conditioning at its current temperature. Air conditioning! No wonder this suite cost each day nearly as much as her monthly salary. It was shameful. She blushed. Shameful, too, the way she had so easily succumbed to its pleasures. Taking off her costume, she enjoyed the sensation of the cool air against her body and stood on tiptoe to place the sun mattress on top of one of the white louvred cupboards. She would not be using it again. The mirror threw back her reflection and she felt ashamed of her nakedness, as if she was exposing it to someone else rather than herself. She must have a shower and put on some clothes. Bond would be back soon and she did not want the embarrassment of him finding her undressed. She picked her costume from the double bed and walked towards the bathroom, passing the small bed in which Bond slept. She wondered if he had noticed that every morning she made the bed before any of the maids came in. She had to admit that it was pride that made her do it. She did not want anyone to think that her husband found her sufficiently unattractive to be dismissed from his bed. Not of course that she would ever sleep with Bond in a thousand years. Their presence together was for the convenience of the State. He was handsome, yes. Very handsome. One need not be afraid of admitting it. But he was an

  Engliski Spion who killed swiftly and, apparently, without feeling. Such a man could never touch her - could he? Anya felt a sudden pang of fear.

  Mr and Mrs Robert Sterling, bearing a striking resemblance to Bond and Anya, had island-hopped from the port of Santa Teresa di Gallura on the north-east coast of Sardinia and were now installed upon the Isla Caprera, one of the scattering of small islands on the fringe of the Bocce di Bonifacio - or, if one was a Corsican looking across the channel that separated Corsica from Sardinia, the Bouches de Bonifacio. Stromberg’s Marine Research Laboratory was apparently somewhere on the dark, rocky Corsican coast that rose abruptly from the sea a few miles away. Stromberg owned a large stretch of coastline and it was reported by the local people that visitors were not welcome. He seldom appeared in public and was taken to and from his domain by helicopter.

  Anya left the shower and put on a loose-fitting cotton shift that descended to the middle of her well-shaped thighs. To her, the hotel with its crust of tiles, baked white walls and dark vaulted doors and wi
ndows looked like a loaf of bread attacked by mice. There was a private beach with a thatched bar surrounded by straw mushrooms - more mice sheltering underneath? - terraces, shady colonnades, gardens of Bougainvillaea and broom sloping down to the tightly-packed shrubs that fringed the sand, and a stone jetty with a small lighthouse at the end of it. And all about, the many-blucd sea, changing its colour as it nosed over white sand or nuzzled yellow rocks, worn smooth as much-fingered gold.

  A sharp toot, toot, on the horn of a motor-car drew Anya to the balcony and she looked down to see Bond standing beside a small, bright red, dart-shaped saloon. Her lip began to curl. The car looked brand new and very expensive.

  ‘I’ve managed to find us some transport,’ said Bond cheerfully. ‘Lotus Esprit - with modifications. Can I interest you in a trial drive, Madam? Excellent specifications; five-speed manual gearbox, eight-and-a-half-inch diaphragm-sprung hydraulically operated clutch

  ‘I will come down,’ said Anya, firmly. She arrived within seconds, conscious that the car was already beginning to attract admiring attention from guests and hotel staff. ‘We do

  not need such a car. Where does it come from?*

  ‘It’s what you might call a company car,’ said Bond. ‘It comes with the job.’

  ‘Ridiculous!' Anya noticed people turning their heads and lowered her voice. ‘This car is too -’ she sought the right word ‘-too important. We could have rented an ordinary car.’

  Bond looked chastened. ‘I’m sorry you feel like that, darling.’ He smiled engagingly at an old lady straining to catch word of what she imagined to be the honeymoon couple’s first tiff, and took Anya's arm. ‘Let me try and give you some better news. Stromberg has extended an invitation to his establishment. That letter from the President of the Royal Society must have done the trick. I found a note in reception. They’re sending a craft to pick us up.’

  ‘What did this President say?' asked Anya.

  ‘That I’m a distinguished marine biologist on holiday in the area and would be delighted to pay my respects.'

  Anya’s beautiful eyes widened. ‘But what do you know of marine biology?’

  Bond produced his gunmetal case and took out a cigarette. ‘Very little. I’m hoping that any discussion will revolve about general topics. Specialists very seldom descend to specifics.' He smiled drily and glanced at his watch. ‘You’d better change into something more protective. It could be a little blustery out there.’

  ‘It sounds as if there will certainly be bluster.* Anya looked appealingly disapproving. Bond picked up the hand that had stung him. ‘If you see me getting out of my depth, show him your wedding-ring.’

  An hour later, Bond stood on the deck of a powerful Riva speedboat and watched the jetty receding behind him. Anya, wearing what looked uncommonly like an Hermes scarf round her head, held the rail beside him and gazed imperiously out to sea. They might have been on their way to Cowes Week. Not for the first time, Bond wondered where she got her clothes from. The high-waisted cotton jacket, perfectly tailored to reveal her shapely behind. The well-cut trousers with the raised seam. The narrow cork-soled platform sandals. You could comb Moscow from Sokolniki Park to the Romenskoye Shosse and not find clothes like that. The Russians did not usually lavish haute couture on home-grown spies. Perhaps she was Nikitin’s mistress. Bond had noticed the undisguisable lust in the man's eyes at Cairo. He shuddered. Fancy having to submit to that blood-steeped butcher. But, somehow, it did not seem possible. Such a girl could not sleep with Nikitin. ‘Such a girl,’ he said, but had she not injected poison into him whilst smiling into his eyes? She was a spy, not the heroine of a romantic novel. Was it this innate wariness that had until now prevented him from dosing the distance between them? Partly, yes. Bond knew that M disapproved of what he described as his ‘womanizing’ and thought it second only to drink as a source of potential danger to a spy. He knew too that the Head of International Export, although too loyal a servant of any government to ever say so, heartily disapproved of the joint initiative that was being taken and thought it could well do more mischief than good. Bond loved, honoured and obeyed M and wished to avoid any indiscretion that would justify his pessimism.

  But was it only professional altruism? Was there not also some element of heightened sensual anticipation in holding back from the so beautiful girl slumbering in the adjacent bed? Was the imagination of the puritan more delirious than the experience of the hedonist?

  And what about the fear of rejection? Did this not play its part? Bond sensed that Anya was a warm, passionate girl who wanted to be made love to - but by him? How would their working relationship be affected by an unreciprocated pass or - he smiled to himself - a reciprocated one? No, on all counts, better leave it alone for now.

  Bond turned his attention to the crew of the Riva. Three hard-faced, blunt-featured men who looked as if they opened doors with their noses. What were they, Corsicans? Bulgars? They had hardly said a word since Anya and he had come aboard. They were uniformly dressed in blue espadrilles, canvas trousers and blue T-shirts bearing the fish emblem between the sinister SS-motif of the Sigmund Stromberg Steamship line. How insensitive could you get when European memories of the Nazis were so long? It was almost as if the loathed initials were intended to strike fear.

  Out of the shelter of the bay, the wind freshened and the sea became choppy. The helmsman gunned the motor and the sharp prow of the Riva rose shark-like as if bent on devouring the gaunt outcrop of land it was bearing down on. Only seabirds could be seen wheeling about the steep cliff-faces and white water showed where grotesquely shaped needles of rock broke surface. It was a bleak and dismal place to find sandwiched between the holiday-brochure blues of sea and sky. Why should Stromberg favour such a remote spot when the Costa Smeralda contained so much that was available and beautiful?

  The wake of the Riva curved and the distant view of Caprera disappeared as the powerful speedboat ploughed its white furrow round the headland. No sign of habitation. Only headlands of rock and the odd bush peering from a fissure. Where could this marine research laboratory be? And then, quite suddenly they saw it. The Riva nosed hard to starboard and a gap between two walls of rock opened into a natural harbour enclosing a structure that rose fifty feet above the water. At first glance it resembled a drilling rig topped by a glass dome. Huge, stressed-steel columns at all corners, catwalks, spiral staircases, a tubular lift-shaft to the platform of the dome. On the dome were radio aerials and a radar shield and inside it a Bell YUH-IB Compound Research Helicopter.

  Bond sucked breath between his teeth. This was something. But a marine research laboratory? It looked more like a military installation. Bond looked at Anya. Her pensive face suggested that she shared his view.

  ‘Jolly impressive, isn’t it, darling?'

  Anya saw one of the crewmen staring at her intently and switched on a captivating smile. ‘Yes, but I was not expecting it to be actually in the sea.’

  ‘Couldn’t ask for a better place for it.’ Bond’s eyes searched the rocky shoreline. There was a ramp with a winch, some oil drums and three prefabricated huts. Probably where the crewmen lived. He looked back towards the laboratory. There were perhaps a dozen men watching from the gantries. Two of them carrying what were soon revealed as automatic carbines. They looked down, surly and malevolent, as the Riva nosed against a pontoon jetty and one of the crewmen jumped on to it with the painter. Bond gazed down into the viridescent depths. It was strange but there, where the sea swirled over the metal piles and shoals of small fish hung immobile, he could see what looked like the outlines of ballast tanks. What purpose would they serve on this permanent structure?

  ‘Signori’ The tone was as peremptory as the outstretched arm gesturing towards the jetty, and the accent not Italian. It came from further east, Bond was sure.

  ‘Mind how you step, darling. It’s very slippery.’ Bond gave Anya his arm and looked at the thin stains of rust leaking from the bolts above his head. Curious the exposure to the
elements in this sheltered little cove, with its high cliff walls that shut out the sun even as midday was approaching.

  A flight of steps led to the.core of the structure and one of the crewmen pressed a button in the wall. A door slid open and Bond saw the inside of a small lift. He was waving Anya into it when one of the other men shook his head. ‘Signor Stromberg wishes to see you alone. The signorina will stay with us.’

  Bond tried to appear unthrown. ‘I see. Going to give her a conducted tour. Good idea. You’ve seen enough fish to last you a lifetime, haven’t you, darling?’

  Was there a slight hint of alarm in her eyes as he stepped into the lift? He rather hoped so. Certainly, he was feeling tense himself. The pulse quickening, a slight drying in the back of the throat that made him want to swallow. The lift sank silently and trembled to a halt. A pause, and the door slid back with a soft hiss. Bond stepped forward and paused. After the bright Mediterranean light this was like going into a darkened auditorium. The door slid shut behind him and Bond’s eyes tested the gloom. There was no sign of Stromberg. The silence lay thick as the pile on the deep carpets. But though there was silence there was movement. Brightly coloured movement. Both sides of the sixty-foot-long room formed armoured-glass aquarium walls. Ingeniously designed lighting made the endless streams of fish that glided past seem like some psychedelic back projection. Living, moving wallpaper. Bond stepped to the nearest wall and found himself face to face with a cherry-pink snapper that was nosing the glass and slowly opening and shutting its mouth as if blowing him kisses. A shoal of angelfish shimmered past. Bond turned round slowly. What a conception. The cost of building the aquarium and assembling the collection must have been astronomical.

  ‘Why do we seek to conquer space when seven tenths of our own universe remains unexplored?’

  At first, Bond thought the voice was coming over a loudspeaker system. It had the same didactic, disembodied quality of a talking guide cassette in a museum. Then he turned and saw the tall, slim figure silhouetted against the moving fish. How he had appeared so silently and suddenly was almost disturbing. Bond felt the small hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle.