The Spy Who Loved Me

by Christopher Wood

  His foot pressed down and his ruthless jaw set firmer. What was he trying to do? He could not outspeed the helicopter. The road stretched straight as far as the eye could see. Anya looked back. The helicopter was five feet above the ground and coming up on them as if intending to land on the roof of the car. She could see the pilot and the huge bulk of the man beside him.

  Stromberg’s killer. His mouth was split into a smile of triumph and his hands were wrapped exultantly about the cannon as if it was a toy that had at last come into its own. He was going to open up at them from point-blank range; the heavy shells would tear the GFRP bodywork to reinforced plastic shreds and spew their guts over three hundred metres of tarmac.

  ‘Stop!’

  Bond stamped the brake-pedal through the floor and left two ribbons of burning rubber spilling out like insulating tape. The Lotus began to spin and the chopper overshot the car and soared like a swingboat in its upwards arc. As it banked steeply and returned, Bond conquered the spin and flung the wheel towards the sea. The Esprit shuddered into its new alignment and burst forward on to a small apron of hard-core. Anya glimpsed sea all around her and heard the cannon begin to hammer her death knell. For a moment they were still and then the sinews of Bond’s wrist locked and the Lotus flew towards a narrow jetty with two yachts moored against it. She heard the thump of the planks beneath the tyres and then they were in mid-air. The golden sun fused with a million malachite motes and then the nose went down and the sea rushed up to claim them. Anya closed her eyes and braced herself against the impact.

  From the helicopter, Jaws watched the Lotus plunge into the sea and felt angry. The man had cheated him even in death. He ordered the pilot to fly over the spot and strafed the sea with cannon shells. But there was no comforting patch of red. Only dark, swirling weed to show where the car was lying. The Bell made another pass and then side-slipped away towards Stromberg’s laboratory.

  Esprit de Mort

  The Lotus sank like a titbit dropped into a fish-tank. Anya looked at the dark green death closing in about her and tried not to panic. It was fortunate that the car was shaped like a dart, but the safety strap had still bruised her breasts when they hit the water. The car wavered from side to side like a falling leaf and settled in a bank of weed. The tentacles waved menacingly against the windows as if eager to gain entrance and envelop them. Anya fought a desire to scream.

  ‘All right?’ Bond’s brisk inquiry might have followed the car lurching over a pot-hole.

  ‘I am still alive.' Anya leaned forward and saw the opaque glass surface of the water twenty feet above her head. A spiral of spent cannon shells dropped to land on the bonnet. She looked to her right and saw that the bottom of the door was hard against a rock. At least no water seemed to be coming in. What were the rules for escaping from submerged cars? Open windows sufficiently to flood car slowly. When pressures are equal, inside and out, there will be no resistance to doors opening. But on her side there would be resistance. The rock. Bond was looking up towards the surface. ‘I think he's gone. He must reckon we’ve had it.’ He sounded almost cheerful.

  ‘Haven’t we?’

  ‘I hope not.’ Bond stabbed the dashboard and there was a slow whirring sound like a diesel engine starting up. Another switch and the headlights popped out of the bonnet and reached into the gloom. Bond gritted his teeth and pushed hard down on the gear lever until it almost disappeared into its rubber cowling. Anya watched in amazement. 'You cannot drive under the sea!' Bond slid the knob of the gear lever forward and the Lotus quivered like a hovercraft preparing for flight and then smoothly drew away from the bank of weed. ‘Not on wheels. Welcome to Wet Nellie. Incidentally, don’t let anyone in Q Branch hear you call it that. To them she will always be the QST/A117 Submersible.’

  Anya looked at Bond and her eyes narrowed angrily. ‘All the time you intended to do this but you would not tell me! ’

  ‘I didn’t have a lot of chance once our friends came calling. Anyhow, it’s all for the best. Once the helicopter reports in, Stromberg won’t be expecting visitors.’ Bond twisted the gear lever knob and the Lotus veered to port.

  ‘How long can we stay down?’ Anya was impressed but she judged it impolite to show it too readily.

  ‘As long as the fuel holds out and we’ve got enough for our purpose. Air is no problem as there’s a small regenerative plant.’ Bond grinned. ‘All other information is classified.’ Anya was irritated by what she took as Bond’s smug smile. T do not think you will find the Soviet Union behind in such developments.’

  ‘I’d better keep my eyes open then.’ Bond pressed his face against the windscreen. ‘It would be embarrassing if we bumped into one of yours, wouldn’t it?’

  Anya made a face and settled back in her seat. She was getting used to Bond now. Perhaps he was not so bad as she had once thought. It would be difficult to survive what they had just gone through together without feeling something, even if it was only a sense of shared experience. She looked at the ruthless face out of the corner of her eye and detected a slight complacent smile indenting one corner of his mouth. It was almost as if he was aware of what she was thinking. The thought made her pull her eyes severely to the front. Her attitude to the Engliski spion must remain inflexible. That was the only way she could perform her duty to the State. Whatever she did, she must not fall in love with him.

  Bond steered from a compass set in the dashboard and after ten minutes brought the Lotus up to a point just below the surface. He pressed a button on the dashboard and a periscope tube rose from its housing where the bonnet joined the windscreen. As the slim metal broke the surface, Bond slid open a panel set in the broad centre band of the driving wheel and a small television screen was revealed. Bond twisted the knob on the dashboard and the scascape on the screen started to turn through three hundred and sixty degrees.

  ‘Excellent!’ Bond’s remark heralded the appearance of Stromberg’s cliff, gaunt and sharp as a blackened tooth. ‘I’ll take her in and we’ll nose our way round to the caldera.’

  It was noticeable that there was more current running now and the water became turbulent and cloudy. Visibility was bad and the headlights bounced back as if playing on thick fog. A column of rock reared up dangerously close and the Lotus bobbed past, nearly scraping its side. Shingle rattled against the bottom of the car like shaken dice. There was obviously a treacherous undercurrent. Bond thought of the jagged fingers of rock seen from the Riva and headed out to sea. Better to back off and take another look through the periscope from a safe distance. This he did and came in straight towards the narrow opening between the rocks at a depth of two fathoms. It was noticeable that the moment the opening was breached, the seabed disappeared beneath them. The explosion, millennia before, had clearly blasted a huge hole in the earth into which the sea had rushed.

  What was less obvious was the position of the two electric eyes staring at each other from opposite sides of the channel.

  Once the contact between them was broken a message was immediately flashed to the operations room of Stromberg’s laboratory.

  Bond was thinking about the depth of the caldera. Why build in its middle when an easier foundation could be found nearer the shore or actually on it? Perhaps the caldera had been formed by the explosion of two adjacent volcanoes and there was an underwater ridge between them. Bond cut back power and went down to four fathoms. It would be interesting to see what the laboratory was built on.

  ‘I’m going in. Keep your eyes peeled.’

  Anya nodded and hunchcd forward. Bond was reminded of her posture when the microfilm had been expected at Cairo. Keen. That was the word for it.

  The water inside the natural harbour was calm, but the visibility was still bad. Probably as a result of the sea’s reaction with the sulphurous compounds on the inside of the caldera. Bond’s eyes probed the gloom and he became prey to a strange sense of apprehension. He could almost feel Stromberg watching him from the perimeter of his vision. The all-seeing watery
gaze filtering towards him. So strong was the image that when Bond saw the inverted dome he shrank back in his seat. For a moment it seemed like a gargantuan replica of Stromberg’s head lolling backwards in the water.

  ‘James!’ Bond looked down to see Anya’s hand gripping his wrist. ‘It is not a permanent structure. It floats! ’

  Anya was right. He might have been looking up at the hull of a ship. There was no foundation. No sign of mooring. The heavy base of the structure hung in the water like the bottom of a saucepan. But why? Was it so that the laboratory could be towed to other locations? This seemed the only feasible explanation - and not a bad idea, either. Stromberg could play with his expensive toy anywhere in the world. Its range was infinite.

  Bond caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. A depth charge! No sooner had he sent the Lotus plunging towards the murky depths than there was a violent explosion and his head crashed against the side of the car. He could feel the blood running down from his temple and the dreadful, vibrating pain burrowing into his eardrums like a drill. The shock waves slapped the Esprit sideways and water started to splutter through leaks in its buckled frame. A dead sea-bream cannoned off the windscreen like a spattered fly.

  A second explosion rippled them further into the depths and Bond desperately tried to feel some response from the controls. He looked at the compass. The needle spun aimlessly. He had to find his way out by instinct. One thing he knew for certain. He dare not go any deeper or the pressure would destroy them. There was still no sign of the bottom. Bond twisted the directional control and felt his shirt sticking to his body. If the steering had been hit they were doomed.

  Boom! Another depth charge. A moray eel snapped past in its death agonies, precursor of a twitching pall of dying fish. Bond tried to keep calm and twisted the steering knob like a burglar feeling for the combination of a safe. Beside him, Anya tore a strip of material from her shirt and forced it into one of the cracks through which water was pouring. At last ! Bond felt the Lotus turning in the direction he wanted and gingerly increased speed. To crash into the side of the caldera would be to commit suicide. With every second that passed he waited for sight or sound of the next depth charge that must surely destroy them but there was nothing. Visibility was still down to half a dozen yards.

  ‘James!’ Bond turned his head and had just enough time to see a frogman aligning what looked like a slim torpedo mounted on the prow of a midget submarine. He put the Lotus into a bank as the weapon was fired. Like an arrow the torpedo sped towards them and for a second Bond thought that it was equipped with some magnetic device that would home in on them. Then it streaked underneath the front of the tilting car and exploded with a flash against the side of the caldera. Once again, the Lotus was shrugged aside but this time the light of the explosion gave Bond a split second glimpse of what lay in front. Fifty feet ahead was the harbour opening.

  ‘James! There are others behind!’

  Anya was right. Three frogmen pushing rocket launchers were closing the distance towards diem. At any second, they would fire. Bond jabbed a finger at the dashboard and a cloud of black ink wiped out Anya’s view of the pursuers. ‘Also known as Billy the Squid,’ said Bond. His eyes probed the dim light ahead. ‘Ah! I see the car-park attendants are gathering to collect their dues.’ Three frogmen carrying what looked like crossbows were positioned in front of a chain fence that now covered the opening they had entered by.

  Anya felt powerless and envious of the grim confidence in Bond’s voice. All three frogmen were levelling their weapons as he leaned forward and pulled a lever beneath the dashboard. There was a sigh and a louvred metal screen rose up to cover the windscreen like a Venetian blind. A spurt of bubbles showed that one of the frogmen had fired, and his bolt thumped into the louvres. There was a sharp crack and a seam of water ran down the side of the windscreen.

  Bond felt icy fingers of fear tightening round his stomach. A shot from the side would finish them. He had not expected the louvres to be so easily breached. The second man fired his bolt and missed. Bond pulled another lever and two small hatches beside the front indicator lights slid open. Behind them were the recessed barrels of two 2.3-inch rocket launchers. Bond levelled at the third man and pulled the triggering mechanism. There was an instant recoil, and for a second Bond was not certain whether they had been hit. The car shook and more water came in through the cracked windscreen.

  Then they saw the man going down, trailing blood and entrails. Anya sucked in her breath in horror. Bond fired the second rocket and tore a hole in the steel netting. But was it wide enough? There was only one way to find out, made doubly dangerous by the fact that Bond dared not accelerate in case he upset the delicate balance of the damaged steering. Fighting to keep the car steady, he headed for the narrow opening. Another frogman appeared directly in his path but there was no deviation. As the man held out his weapon to shoot Bond drove the wedge nose of the Lotus into him and propelled him backwards draped over the bonnet of the car like a rag doll. His face was so close that Bond could see the terror in the man’s eyes. Then he was pushed back into the wire so that the severed strands ripped the wetsuit from his back like sharpened claws and once again the water turned red with blood. The grip of the wire tightened around the Lotus as it thrust deeper into the breach, and Bond could sec that the strands were thick as a man’s thumb.

  Dry-mouthed, he opened the throttle as far as he dared and listened to the nerve-shredding screech of the wire as it slowly scraped along the roof of the car. Beside him, Anya sat tight-lipped, waiting, as he was, for the missile that would come gliding out of the inky blackness behind them. Inch by painstaking inch the Esprit moved forward seeming to carry the whole fence with it and then - Boom! Another depth charge. Another series of surging shock waves. Bond closed his eyes and clapped his hands to his ears to deaden the pain. Then he felt the nose of the Lotus dropping. They were no longer trapped in the wire! The explosion had pushed them through. Bond looked back and saw the fence shimmering into place, the ruptured wires reaching out like hungry tentacles robbed of their prey. Dropping down to the floor of the ocean, he took the Lotus towards the cover of the nearest rocks.

  Red Roses for a Red Lady

  The fortuitous, amazing and unprecedented escape of the newlyweds soon became by far the most compelling topic of conversation at the Hotel Lavarone. Everybody agreed that had Mr and Mrs Sterling perished it would have quite ruined their holiday - they were of course referring to their own holidays - and it just showed how careful you had to be if you were fortunate enough to be the owner of what was clearly a very expensive sports car.

  The whole incident, regrettable as it was, would obviously teach Mr and Mrs Sterling a very valuable lesson and one that would stand them in good stead in the years to come. They would become more sober, diligent and unobtrusive and might, with any luck, even become less self- confident, physically attractive and transparently rich. Still, it was pointless discussing luck in the presence of such people because they obviously 'already enjoyed a superabundance of it. To plunge into the sea in a motor car and survive was very lucky. To plunge into the sea at a marina and be able to winch your car ashore so that it was still driveable required a word stronger than any compounded with luck and not yet found in English, French, German or Italian dictionaries.

  Still, perhaps the handsome cruel-faced man with the arrogant manner did feel a pang of guilt for his behaviour and his good fortune, because the extravagantly large bunch of red roses arriving in the chauffeur-driven car were apparently for his wife and must have been ordered at his behest. It was only a gesture - and one that he could easily afford - but it said something on his behalf.

  When they limped back to the hotel, Bond had thrown out the first story that came into his head to explain the condition of the Lotus and steered Anya up to the suite. He closed the door behind them and looked at her - bruised, bedraggled and utterly and totally beautiful. She had thrown herself into his arms and clung to him with her
arms round his neck. ‘Oh James! We are still alive, alive! All the time we sit in that car I think that I am never going to be able to tell you.’ Her mouth came up eagerly and he kissed it hard and long, feeling the beautiful strong curve of her body thrusting against his. She was shameless, uncontrolled, spontaneous.

  ‘Dammit, woman! I think I’m falling in love with you.’ He wanted to say it first.

  ‘Good, good!’ She kissed him again, standing on tiptoe. ‘I cannot believe that we are still alive. I know that it is ridiculous to talk of fate - but, oh, dear James’ - again, that haunting ‘Shems’ - ‘we must be special, you and I.’

  Bond looked down into the beautiful, proud face glowing with love and intensity and felt tears prick his eyes. She was so much his woman, so much like another he had loved. ‘I think when we are in the car, that if ever again we have the chance to make love, we must take it. I would hate to die without having your body inside mine.’

  They kissed again and this time it was like some kind of sacrament. The act went beyond the physical manifestation of their two bodies melding together. Bond felt himself closer to this woman than if they had been making love. He kissed her deeply and then drew away, waiting to hear a loud click at the back of his brain and discover that he had been dreaming. Nothing happened. The brave blue eyes still stared quizzically into his. The proud nose tilted up a millimetre. The soft, lustrous mouth said, ‘I desire you’ without parting its lips.

  ‘I hope you realize that you were appearing flamboyantly provocative in the foyer? Old men were falling off the bar stools like ninepins.’ Bond looked down at the slim breasts poking through the remnants of Anya’s shirt.