The Spy Who Loved Me

by Christopher Wood

  ‘Liberia.’

  ‘Great! We’ll be the first guys to get a combat ribbon for attacking Liberia.'

  Four hours after this interchange, Bond was stirred from uneasy half-sleep. ‘I think we’re there, sir. Assemble aft.’ He snapped his eyes open and rolled sideways to check the Walther PPK. In the bunk below him, Anya was performing a similar chore with her Beretta. He watched her purposefully slotting home the bullets. ‘Have you engraved my name on one of them or are you leaving it to chance?’

  Anya looked up at him and at last there was emotion written on her face. ‘Sergei Borzov. Does that name mean anything to you?’ Bond shook his head. ‘You murdered him!’

  Bond sighed. ‘I have a double-0 prefix. That means *- you are licensed to kill! ’ Anya's eyes blazed. ‘I did not hold a licence but I loved that man! ’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Bond was serious. ‘I don’t wish to trivialize, but I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

  ‘Not long ago, were you not in the French Alps?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ There was a hint of relief in Bond’s voice. He understood now and felt no guilt. ‘That man was sent to kill me. It was either him or me. We were both doing a job. There was no premeditation. If he belonged to you ..- Bond’s voice tapered away - . then I am sorry. It was his great misfortune.’

  Anya’s eyes continued to stare up at him, remorseless, unforgiving. She said nothing, but her eyes spoke hate.

  Bond felt it necessary to continue. ‘Anya, we are both in the same business. We are spies. It is a dirty business. We try to believe that the ends justify the means but we are never sure. We kill, and we hope that others will live. I bear no resentment to this man Borzov.'

  Anya's lips split into a bitter smile. ‘Because you are alive! ’ ‘Because I was lucky!’ Bond spat the words. ‘When it is kill or be killed, I kill! So do you. That is the rule of the game.’ He swung from the bunk and landed silently like a big cat.

  Anya glared at him, eyes blazing. When she spoke, the words came with slow, branding menace. ‘I know the rules of the game I play. When this mission is over, Sergei will be avenged and you will be dead! ’ She slammed the loaded clip into the butt of the Beretta.

  Bond looked down into the beautiful, brave face with the hair disarranged by an attempt at sleep. The determined jaw and the proud, sculpted cheekbones glowered with loathing and defiance. Everything about the face he admired and coveted.

  ‘He must have been quite a man,’ he said and turned on his heel.

  Outside, the submarine hummed with an air of mounting tension that brought back memories of previous missions. Bond zipped up his combat tunic and made his way past the crew’s quarters to a narrow companion way leading up to the control room. A rating moved past him, infiltrating his body into the scant space available like a wraith. Like everybody on board he had adjusted to the demands of operating in 4 confined area. Bond felt almost clumsy by comparison.

  The inside of the control room was like an amalgam of the cockpits of several jumbo jets. Banks of dials, screens, switches, flashing lights, tubes, piping and multi-coloured wires. There was a suppressed babble of procedural sound and two rows of sweating, shirt-sleeved men in headphones looking like operators in a telephone exchange. The atmosphere was warm, bordering on hot.

  In the middle of it all stood Carter, shoulders slightly Stooped. He nodded as Bond approached. ‘We got her.’ He turned to the rating standing beside him. ‘Stand by second observation on the target. Up ’scope.’

  With a pneumatic hiss, the periscope rose from the well and the periscope assistant snapped down the handles. Carter dropped to his knees on the deck, seized the handles and pressed his eyes to the eyepiece. He rose to his feet with the ascending periscope. ‘Take a look, Commander.’

  Bond felt a sense of exhilaration as he stepped forward and took the shiny handles in his hands. The hunter with the target in his sights. And what a target! It was difficult to get an exact idea but she must be more than a quarter of a mile in length. The bridge structure rose from the stern like a small castle and the bulwarks were cliff-top high above sea level.

  Carter heard Bond’s sharp intake of breath. ‘Yep. That’s one of your eighty tennis-court jobs. You know, Jack Nicklaus needs his best drive and a chip shot to play from one end to the other. Do you notice how low she is in the water?’

  Bond nodded. ‘What’s that? Ballast?’

  ‘I guess so. If she’s not carrying much oil, it must be.’

  Bond looked up to find Anya standing beside him. He relinquished the periscope and she nodded curtly. It was noticeable that few crew members were so engrossed in their tasks that they could not spare a few seconds to examine Anya’s bulky combat uniform for the more obvious signs of the exceptionally desirable female body it contained.

  Anya straightened up and brushed hair from her forehead. ‘I see that there is a helicopter on the helideck.’

  Bond turned to Carter. ‘I can’t be certain from this distance but I think it’s a Bell YUH-IB. Our friend Stromberg has a souped-up version of that model. We’ve bumped into it before.’

  ‘So he could be on board? Interesting.’ A glint came into Carter’s eye and his shoulders snapped back. ‘Okay, let's take a closer look.' He stepped to the periscope and began to snap out orders. ‘Target bearing ... Mark! Range ... Mark! Down ’scope.’

  Bond looked towards Anya but she avoided his eyes. Damn woman! Did she really mean what she had said? Was she going to pump a bullet into his back when it was all over? He wished he could take her in his arms and shake some rough sense into her. In the background, the arcane liturgy of the control room urged the Wayne towards its target.

  ‘One division in high power.’

  ‘Range six thousand two hundred yards.’

  ‘Angle on the bow, starboard sixty.’

  ‘Control - Torpedo Room. Boarding Party ready, sir.’

  The mention of ‘boarding party’ jarred Bond to his senses. Major Anya Amasova could take her beautiful body to hell. He had more important fish to fry. He turned his back on her and prepared to move amidships. ‘... best solution for target is one two zero, speed three knots.’

  ‘Officer of the Deck, come right north and tell manoeuvring to make turns for eleven knots.’

  ‘Officer of the Deck, aye, sir. Right, twenty degrees rudder.

  Manoeuvring - Control. Turns for eleven knots.’

  ‘Right, twenty degrees rudder, aye ... sir, my rudder is right twenty.'

  ‘Steady on course, north.'

  Bond had taken one step towards the torpedo room when the submarine gave a violent lurch and he was hurled sideways against a bank of instruments. The lights flickered and for a second he thought that they had rammed some underwater obstacle. Men were thrown backwards into untidy heaps on the floor and Anya was catapulted into his arms. The smooth, orderly build-up of voices performing their preordained tasks gave way to a disjointed babble as the PA system exploded into staccato life. ‘Control - Sonar. Total power supplies failure on all sets.’ ‘Control - Manoeuvring. We’re losing electrical frequency. I’ll have to break down the system.’

  The lights flickered again and a rising high-pitched whine made Bond grit his teeth. The hull of the submarine was vibrating as if an electric drill was playing against it. It was like being inside a tooth whilst it was being drilled.

  ‘What in God’s name is happening?’ Carter’s face was deathly white.

  Onother voice came over the PA system. ‘Reactor Scram! Reactor Scram! We’ve lost all electrical supplies.'

  Another shudder raked the ship and the ear-splitting whine sang through the metal. The lights flickered, dimmed and then went out like a dying candle. At the same instant as the vibration began to die away there was the sound of the ventilation fans slowly running down and stopping. After that, an eerie, nerve-racking silence. Bond could see the luminous dial of Carter’s watch and almost heard the man thinking. A pencil rolled across the deck.

&n
bsp; Then Carter spoke with firm authority. ‘Surface! Blow for’d! Blow aft! Full ahead, full rise on both planes. Up ’scope.’

  The noise of compressed air rushing into the ballast tanks was deafening and Anya dug her nails into Bond’s combat suit. The submarine shuddered and rose steeply through the water. Anya, realizing that it was not going to break up, released her hold on Bond. Carter clapped his eyes to the periscope and rose with it. The tension in the control room was painful. Men were counting their life-expectancy in seconds. They waited in darkness like sinners at the gates of hell. Carter’s outline was just recognizable as he swung the periscope through one hundred and eighty degrees. Then there was a gasp. An unbelieving gasp.

  ‘My God! It’s not possible!'

  The Trap Closes

  A gaint shock-wave shook the Wayne like a cuff from a huge hand and Bond was hurled forward into the darkness. He cannoned into one of the crew and sprawled half stunned across the deck. Around him, men groaned, cursed and struggled to stir some response from their lifeless equipment. At any second, Bond expected the hull to split and the water come rushing in. It was the darkness that made it unbearable. They were like cats doomed to drown in a sack. Bond scrambled to his knees and found Carter as a second but lesser shock-wave ran through the submarine. There was a distant booming noise from the stern as if someone was hitting the hull with a sledgehammer.

  ‘What the devil’s happening?’

  ‘I don’t know. The Lepadus was coming up astern. I thought she was going to ram us.’

  ‘We wouldn’t be talking if she had. What happened before that? Why did we lose power?’

  'I don’t know. It was like we were being jammed.’ ‘Precisely.’ Anya’s cold, clipped voice was close at hand. ‘Such techniques are being perfected in the Soviet Union. That is why I had reservations concerning the conduct of this operation.’

  ‘You might express them a little more forcefully next time.’ If there is going to be a next time, thought Bond. He heard the hiss of air as Carter activated the periscope and wondered why the sea had suddenly become so calm. They must be on the surface and yet there was hardly any movement. Some men were holding up lighters and the flames were steady. The only sound was that strange clanging noise. Bond felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickling.

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Nothing. I'm not getting anything. Blackout.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! ’ The voice came from one of the crew. Bond could sense the seeds of panic that would soon be spreading through the submarine. ‘What are we going to do, Captain? Open the hatch?'

  Carter’s voice was resolute. ‘Not until I know what the hell there is out there.’

  There was a violent explosion two feet behind Bond and he instinctively ducked sideways. The hull of the submarine was humming. Whatever was happening out there was calculated to tear nerves to threads. Bond took a lighter and held it up to the hull. A cylindrical metal bolt had been fired through the side of the submarine. There was a small hole in its centre. What did it all mean? Where were they?

  ‘Captain - you have precisely two minutes to open your hatches and surrender your ship.’ The voice was muffled and must be coming through a limpet microphone attached to the side of the hull. Despite the distortion, the thin, measured tone was familiar. Stromberg. Bond saw Anya’s eyes shining in the darkness. He read in them what he felt himself. Fear. ‘The alternative is extermination by cyanide gas. We will pump the hull full of gas bolts if necessary. You will assemble your men on deck unarmed. Anyone found with a weapon or attempting to hide will be shot. You now have one and a half minutes.’

  Bond listened to men breathing in the darkness. A lighter went out. What alternatives were there? Escape via one of the torpedo tubes? No time. Gas masks? Useless against cyanide gas.

  ‘You have one minute, Captain. Stand by to activate gas cylinders. Reload gas bolt.’

  Carter swore. ‘Bastards! They’ve got us over a barrel.’ He started to move towards the sail. There was a release of tension in the control room. Bond turned to Anya. ‘Keep your hair out of sight. Stromberg won’t know we’re aboard. We’ll take our chance when we see what the set-up is.’

  Anya nodded and started to push her hair under her cap. The heat in the control room was unbearable. Bond wiped his dripping forehead with his sleeve and marvelled at the endurance of men who were prepared to stay below the surface for months at a time.

  ‘So, living still appeals to you, Captain.’ Stromberg’s voice crackled through the hull. ‘Very wise. Assemble your men immediately. There is little time left.’

  Carter appeared with a flashlight. He looked like a man hovering on the edge of reason. His face was hollow and drawn. ‘Okay men, muster on the forward casing. Hurry it along.’ He turned to Bond but did not speak.

  ‘Where are we?’ said Bond.

  Carter spoke as if finding it difficult to believe his own words. ‘We’re inside the tanker.’

  ‘Bozhi moi!3 Anya’s long legs swept her towards the sail with Bond at her shoulder. Had Carter taken leave of his senses? Bond saw an oval of light above his head and pulled himself on to the navigation bridge. What he saw made his eyes widen in amazement. What had Carter’s words been? ‘It’s not possible!’ The first impression was of being inside a cathedral. A huge space enclosed by walls and vaulted ceiling far above. Pillars, columns, buttresses. The whole designed to throw the eye forward to a stained-glass window radiating light which stretched from one wall to the other. Sepulchral shadows giving way to celestial incandescence. But this was no place of worship. On closer examination, the rood screen across the stained-glass windows became louvred steel, shielding the face of a brilliantly lit control room. The columns became steel girders supporting gangways, gantries and catwalks, joined by flights of stairs and running both lengths of the structure and across its middle. Elevators served key access points to the galleries, and a tube-enclosed hovercar track with regular entry points ran beneath them. This was staggering enough but it was only the beginning. Virtually the entire area bounded by the four walls was an enormous sea-filled dock divided by two jetties into three mooring bays. The nose of the Wayne was in the centre bay and on either side of her were two other submarines. Bond tried to keep pace with his amazement. As a conception it was more fantastic than anything he had ever seen or thought about. A vessel built in the guise of a tanker capable of swallowing submarines. And the two submarines already here? One British, one Russian. He tried to read the nameplates through the glare of the searchlights playing on his face.

  ‘Hurry! I am not renowned for my patience.’ Again, Strom- berg's hectoring voice. Bond climbed down the ladder to the deck wondering where it was coming from. On all sides, men with sub-machine-guns were covering them from quay and gallery. A rubber tube, attached to the bolt that had been fired through the hull, ran from the side of the Wayne to one of a number of gas cylinders stacked on a trolley. Beside the man with his hand resting alertly on the tap of the gas cylinder was another holding what looked like a pneumatic drill. This must be the gun for firing the gas bolts. The men wore the SS-and- fish insignia of the crew of the Riva and were dressed in the same blue uniform. Without exception they looked menacingly alert and well trained. Bond’s admiration for Stromberg increased in proportion to his fear and loathing. This man was capable of holding the world to ransom.

  ‘That is the Potemkin!' Anya hissed the words as she moved beside Bond with her head down. Bond said nothing but looked beyond the steel pillar to the submarine in front of him. He could just make out the lettering ‘— ger' Ranger! Thank God! But what about the crew? Had Stromberg murdered them? And this thought with the crew of the Wayne being lined up on the forward casing. What were they facing, a firing squad? Bond hesitated, wondering whether to spring at the nearest guard. But even if he wrested the man’s weapon he would be instantly gunned down from above. Best to wait and see.

  ‘Prisoners to brig.’

  Bond tucked his chin in a
nd breathed a sigh of relief. They were not going to be killed - not yet, anyway. The guards gestured with the muzzles of their weapons and the crew of the Wayne began to file down the gangway to the quayside. Bond looked ahead and saw three heavy steel doors in the bulkhead beneath the gallery that fronted the control room. There were two armed guards outside the doors and a cluster of disappointed faces showed through small square openings. ‘Why didn’t you send the marines?’ said a Cockney voice.

  Bond waited until he was out of view of the bridge beneath the wide gallery and looked back down the length of the interior of the Lepadus. It was obvious now why she had a straight rather than a bulbous bow. He could see the line that marked the closure point of the two huge doors. Once again, he marvelled at the enormity of the concept. To produce something of this size and intricacy must have cost countless millions of pounds. What did Stromberg hope to recoup from such an outlay? It must be more than mere money.

  ‘Stop! ’ The voice echoed from the PA system like a rifle shot. The guards immediately thrust their weapons forward and the line of prisoners stumbled to a halt. Bond felt his heart miss a beat. What had happened? He glanced at Anya but she was looking down into the oily waters of the dock.

  ‘I believe we have unexpected guests. Guards, bring Mr and Mrs Sterling to the control room! ’ There was a deadly, mocking edge to the voice and Bond’s heart sank. How had they been spotted? And then he saw it3 turning slowly along its track like an electric fan. Mounted on a rail sixty feet above their heads was a TV scanner relaying images back to the control room. A guard stepped into the ranks and Bond recognized one of the men who had been at the laboratory. His face set into a mean leer and he jabbed his automatic into Bond’s stomach until the sight buried itself in flesh. ‘Vas-y!' Bond winced and resisted the temptation to brain the Corsican with his own weapon. Something told him he was going to need all the strength he had. Anya was plucked from the ranks and the two of them propelled towards a curved flight of stairs that led from the quayside to the control room. A torrent of jeers in Russian and English came from the grilles along the brig. Bond noticed that the doors were secured by wheels like the door of a bank safe. At least the crews of the Ranger and Potemkin sounded as if they were spoiling for a fight. He only hoped he could provide them with one.