Bond Movies 07 - Die Another Day

by Raymond Benson

  Bond switched off the MRI machine, the Walther dropped into his hand and all the knives and scalpels fell to the floor. He turned in time to dodge the burning bed that Zao rammed towards him. Bond took aim and tried to fire but at that moment a medic stepped into the room. Zao grabbed the man and used him for cover as he moved for the door. Then he thrust the frightened medic at Bond and ran off down the corridor.

  Bond opened his fist. The bullet pendant was still there. He pocketed it and ran after the terrorist.

  At precisely the instant that Bond had made his way .into the ‘Prohibited Area’, Jinx was having a consultation with Dr Alvarez in the clinic director’s office. The doctor, a middle-aged Cuban with thick-rimmed glasses and a bushy moustache, read Jinx’s notes as he wandered around the room. The light glowed from his computer screen. Jinx sat before his desk, awaiting his pronouncement. She scanned the room and couldn’t help admiring the various expensive pieces of art the doctor had collected. A Picasso and a Degas adorned the walls and on a shelf was a glass case containing an opened, jewel-encrusted Faberge egg. Beneath that she found what she was looking for -the safe that sat on the floor beneath the bookshelf.

  ‘So, you are here to have DNA replacement therapy,' Alvarez said.

  ‘That’s right,’ she replied.

  ‘Let me explain the two phases. First, we kill off your bone marrow and wipe the DNA slate clean. A blank canvas, if you will.’ The doctor gave her a sick grin and continued. ‘Phase two is the introduction of new DNA harvested from healthy donors: orphans, runaways, people that won’t be missed. I like to think of myself as an artist and this is when I. . . create. Be it a new ethnic group or just. . . bodily enhancements.’ He stepped behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders. ‘It is a painful process, I’m afraid. But all great art is. I will certainly enjoy working on you.’ Jinx involuntarily shivered. She reached into a pocket on her dress and pulled out a cheque. The doctor smiled again and took it from her. He moved around to his chair behind the desk and examined the cheque, which was drawn from the Bank of the Cayman Islands. Suddenly a small round hole appeared in the centre of the cheque, accompanied by a low fwip sound. Alvarez stared at the hole in confusion, then down at his chest. Blood spread across his shirt. He looked at Jinx and saw that she was pointing a smoking, silenced Browning 9mm at him.

  ‘Of course most artists are only appreciated after they’re dead,’ she said. She fired again, this time through the doctor’s skull. He fell back into the chair with a frozen expression of disbelief on his face. Jinx stood, leaned over the desk and retrieved the cheque and notes. She picked up a cigarette lighter from the desk, flicked it on and set fire to the pieces of paper She let them bum in an ashtray as she walked around the desk to examine the doctor’s computer. She typed a few commands and brought up a screen.

  It was Zao’s original face. A legend flashed: ‘Phase One Completed.’

  Jinx nodded to herself then typed more commands. The image disappeared and was replaced by a computergenerated image of Alvarez’s safe. She punched some numbers and a screen queried: ‘Use combination in memory?’ Jinx typed the ‘Y’ button and the real safe opened.

  This is almost too good to be true, she thought.

  She shut down the computer and then moved to the safe. Opening it wide, she rummaged through some papers and found the computer back-up disk she was looking for. She lifted the hem of her dress, exposing a pouch fastened to her thigh. She placed the disk in the pouch and removed an explosive charge. Jinx stood, opened two filing cabinet drawers, pulled out some random files and tossed them around the room. She manipulated some buttons on the object and the LED on top of it displayed the numbers ‘1.00’. Jinx positioned the explosive charge among the pile of papers and pushed the last button. The timer began to count down from one minute.

  Jinx immediately left the doctor’s office as bells rang out through the building. The fire in Zao’s room had set off an alarm, triggering escape lights and sprinklers. Several patients, pale and unfinished like Zao, shuffled along the corridor with drips attached. She peered through the swarm of bizarre figures and suddenly saw a familiar face at the end of the hall.

  It was James Bond. Their eyes met and he ran towards her, still holding his Walther.

  ‘James!’ she exclaimed, abandoning her purposeful manner to become a wide-eyed innocent. ‘What’s happening? Why do you have a gun?’

  ‘You’ve got to get out!’ he shouted.

  Bond suddenly caught sight of Zao at the end of the corridor behind Jinx. There was a flash of his reptilian eyes as he recognised Bond, then he dived into the doctor’s office.

  ‘Now!’ Bond shouted at Jinx, then he raced off after Zao.

  ‘James-’ Jinx tried to say, but he was gone. She frowned, as part of her wanted to warn him - but it was too late. She shrugged and moved on.

  Bond burst into Alvarez’s office just in time to see Zao leaping from the broken window behind the desk. Bond ran across to the window, crouched and aimed - just as Jinx’s timer hit zero.

  The desk protected Bond from the full force of the explosion. As it was, he was thrown against the wall. A section of the ceiling above the window isollapsed, blocking Bond’s escape route. The room filled with smoke as the debris caught fire. Only then did Bond take in his surroundings; he saw the dead doctor on the floor, the open safe, the burning papers ...

  He attempted to lift the debris in front of the window but it was no use. The fire was raging between him and the office door. He was trapped.

  Frantic, he looked around, found the doctor’s lab coat and used it as a shield. A wheeled trolley containing a nitrogen cylinder sat in the corner. Bond leapt for it and dragged it over broken glass. He pointed the cylinder at a blank wall eight feet away. He then pulled a fire extinguisher off the wall and used it to hammer the valve off the nitrogen cylinder. Nitrogen shot out, propelling the trolley forward until it exploded. Bond dived into the smoke, through the hole and landed in the other room. From there he ran back into the corridor and made his way up to the quad. He looked out of the window and saw Zao down below on the clinic landing pad, knocking down a guard who was protecting an ambulance helicopter. Zao forced his way into the chopper and threw the pilot out onto the tarmac. The rotors started turning and the helicopter began to rise.

  Then Bond saw Jinx running up the sloping battlement at full tilt, firing a pistol. She was apparently aiming at Zao, but the helicopter was ascending too quickly. Zao leaned out of the chopper and fired a machine gun back at her but failed to hit his target. Jinx continued to shoot but her clip clicked empty. The helicopter got away.

  Two armed guards approached Jinx. She dropped her gun and then unzipped her dress. It fell to her feet, revealing the sexy bikini she had worn the day before. She kicked off her heels and then raised her arms above her head in a classic surrender. The two guards were beguiled. Jinx looked up and saw Bond watching her. She gave him a look of wry acknowledgement and then she let herself fall backwards into thin air.

  A two-hundred-foot backdive.

  Bond watched with amazement as her figure sailed downward in beautiful formation and hit the water like a knife. A boat appeared out of nowhere, obviously poised to pick her up. She surfaced and clambered aboard. Bond was unable to see who else was on the boat as it shot off towards Cuba, cutting a white wake through the blue.

  Bond smiled in simple admiration.

  He turned from the window and fished Zao’s bullet pendant out of his pocket. He could feel that it was hollow, so he unscrewed the base and turned it over.

  Diamonds spilled out into his palm.

  09 - A Man Called Graves

  Raoul focused the small 1950s optical machine so that it projected a chromatic display of one of the diamond’s innermost colours onto a card. He looked through a microscope and studied the pattern.

  Bond stood nearby and reflected on the events of the past twenty-four hours. In his guise as a clinic orderly, he had managed to gain passage
from Isla Organos back to Cuba with no problem. The boat had been crowded with staff and patients, but it was apparent that some people hadn’t made it. By the time emergency services arrived at the scene, the clinic had completely burned down.

  Bond had searched for Jinx at the hotel but, as he expected, there was no sign of her. He had even made enquiries at the quay but the guard told him that he hadn’t seen her. The boat she got on must have sped to another part of the island, where she had disembarked and disappeared.

  Now Bond was back in Raoul’s study in the Havana cigar factory. He was confident that he could trust the Cuban and had asked him to analyse the diamonds that were in Zao’s pendant.

  ‘Hmm,’ Raoul said. ‘Beautiful . . . but illegal. The chemical composition shows this is from Sierra Leone. They’re conflict diamonds. Since the UN put an embargo on them, they’re worthless.’

  Raoul gestured to the microscope and Bond looked through it. He was no expert in identifying the gems, but he knew a little about points and how diamonds were cut and polished.

  ‘Makes sense,’ he said, admiring the craftsmanship. ‘Zao was involved in trading them once before. Look at this, there’s some kind of marking. It looks like "GG"’.' He moved away and allowed Raoul to look.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ Raoul concurred. He, too, could see the tiny ‘GG’ logo etched into one of the facets, invisible to the naked eye. ‘My mistake. These diamonds are legal. They are from Graves’ mine in Iceland. That is his laser signature.’

  ‘Graves?’

  ‘Gustav Graves made a huge find up there a year or so ago.’

  ‘I’m not familiar with him.’

  Raoul looked at Bond with surprise. ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘Humour me. Who is he?’

  ‘Very rich industrialist who likes publicity. Came from nowhere and was an overnight success. He’s working on some kind of space technology but makes his living with the diamond mine. Extraordinary specimens, I must say.’

  Bond raised an eyebrow. ‘And yet they’re identical to conflict diamonds? What an amazing coincidence ’

  Miss Moneypenny was hoping that M would bring up 007’s whereabouts during the heated discussion with the Americans.

  MI6’s executive assistant sat in M’s outer office with her ear to the intercom, eavesdropping on what was going on within the inner office. Normally she tended to mind her own business when M was dealing with problems behind closed doors, but Moneypenny was certain that they were discussing James Bond.

  Charles Robinson surprised her by asking, ‘Tuned into an interesting station?’ He was standing in the doorway, having appeared without her noticing.

  Moneypenny jumped and switched off the intercom- ‘All I got was a storm warning,’ she said, embarrassed.

  Robinson got her meaning and nodded. He passed through to the padded door and entered the inner sanctum.

  M was on a video link with the NSA agent Falco and it was obvious that the American was angry.

  ‘Look,’ Falco said, ‘I don’t understand why you couldn’t stick to the deal. Keep him under lock and key.’

  ‘Are you implying that I had a hand in his escape, Mister Falco?’ M asked.

  ‘Well he got away real fast!’

  ‘It’s what he’s trained to do.’

  ‘I want to show you something,’ Falco said. ‘This is security camera footage that we obtained from the Alvarez Clinic in Cuba. Take a look at this.’

  The screen filled with images of Bond entering the lobby of the clinic, pushing Krug in the wheelchair This was followed by a shot of Bond running down a smoke-filled corridor, gun in hand. A clip from the BBC came next, showing an aerial view of the blazing clinic. Patients and staff were running about in a panic.

  M was genuinely shocked. Falco came back on the screen and said, ‘Bond’s out of control. He arrives in Havana and the next thing we know, a clinic is burning down. Now we’ve heard he’s headed for London. If you can’t put your house in order, we’ll do it for you.’

  Falco ended the transmission without saying goodbye.

  M looked at Robinson with a grim face.

  ‘Every point of entry is on alert,’ he said, anticipating her orders. ‘Bond wouldn’t come back here. He d be out of his mind.’

  The British Airways 747 jumbo jet banked eastward and began its descent over London. It was nearly time for James Bond to make his move. He finished the last few sentences of the article in the High Life magazine he was reading and then took a long look at the cover photo. The lead story was about the exploits of action man/business man Gustav Graves. An Argentinean orphan with dual British citizenship, he had only recently come into the international spotlight as a multimillionaire who was funding the development of secretive space programs. He had his hand in a number of businesses, but Bond was interested in him because of the diamonds. Apparently Graven owned a mine and diamond processing centre in Iceland. The profile in the magazine described him as a philanthropist who gave freely to various charities and though not yet thirty years old something of a financial genius. He was also an adventurer. Graves enjoyed ballooning, mountaineering and was a fencing champion. The photos featured a young man of serious good looks, dark hair and blue eyes. He might have been a male model.

  As Bond was one of only four passengers in the first-class cabin, he had almost the full attention of the pretty flight attendant who had served him a martini half an hour earlier. She began to walk along the aisle, preparing the cabin for landing and stopped beside Bond’s seat to take his glass. The plane shook a little from turbulence and she reached for the back of a seat to steady herself.

  ‘Lucky I asked for it shaken,’ Bond said, handing the empty glass to her. She smiled and asked Bond to bring his seat upright, then moved aft, gathering empty glasses from other passengers.

  ‘Beds back to vertical, please,’ she announced. ‘We’re coming in to land.’

  She turned back to get another glimpse of the handsome man who liked martinis and was surprised to see that his seat was empty. She moved back to it and saw that the copy of High Life lay in his place.

  As the plane lined up with the river for its final approach, the massive nose wheel emerged from its resting-place beneath the fuselage. James Bond was holding on to the strut. The wind buffeted him but he enjoyed the view; Big Ben on one side of the river, the MI6 building on the other.

  It was a trick he had tried only once before and that had been on a smaller plane. The mechanics were the same, however. The difficult part was getting from the cabin to the inner fuselage. Few people other than airline personnel knew about the compartment in the galley that allowed emergency access to the bowels of the plane. When the flight attendant wasn’t looking, he slipped into the galley, opened the trap door and down he went.

  Thankfully, the weather was pleasant and warm.

  The plane touched down at Heathrow without any problems. As soon as the aircraft had taxied off the runway and pulled into the gate, Bond undid the belt and jumped off the wheel strut. No one saw him. He nonchalantly walked away from the plane as the baggage handlers showed up to unload.

  Londoners were used to huge crowds in front of Buckingham Palace. On this particular afternoon, TV cameras, newspaper photographers and a throng of journalists had joined the enormous crowd of spectators and tourists gathered across from the Queen Victoria Memorial to await the arrival of one man. The problem was that he was late. Traffic was backed up in all directions and people were becoming impatient and restless.

  James Bond had lost himself in the crowd. He, too was wailing for the celebrity’s imminent arrival, but his eyes were focused on the attractive young woman who was part of the man’s press team. She was smartly dressed, in her twenties, had blonde hair and an easy athleticism that was obvious despite her professional attitude.

  A reporter loudly proclaimed, ‘Looks like he’s not going to make it.’

  The blonde answered him, loud enough for all to hear. ‘Oh, you should know better tha
n to count Gustav out.’ She pulled out a mobile, punched some numbers and talked quietly into it. After a few moments, she shut the mobile and made a loud announcement to the crowd. She was obviously used to raising her voice in front of large groups of people.

  ‘I’m sure Gustav will be along very soon. I know he wouldn’t be late for the Queen.’ She looked up to the skies and smiled. ‘In fact, there he is now.’ She pointed and shielded her eyes from the bright sun. Everyone followed suit.

  A man had just jumped from a small aircraft. Within seconds, a Union Jack parachute opened and he floated dramatically down into Green Park. Newscasters directed their television cameras at him while . photographers snapped away.

  Gustav Graves landed with finesse and pulled off his chute. The crowd applauded as he walked across to a waiting limousine and reporters suddenly rushed at him. Bond coolly regarded the whole media event. Graves certainly had style and he knew how to turn it into a photo opportunity.

  'What a wonderful day to become a knight!’ he said to the cameras. Everyone laughed.

  The young woman joined him and deftly created a small space for Graves in the crowd, to give the cameras a better view.

  ‘And will you be using your title?’

  Graves shook his head and waved the question away. ‘You know me. I’m proud of my adopted nation, but Fd never stand on ceremony.’ He had a refined, very English accent.

  ‘After an entrance like that, you can’t be surprised you've been called a self-publicising adrenaline junkie?’

  'I prefer the term "adventurer".’

  ‘Mister Graves. What is it we’ve been hearing about rockets being launched, this Icarus space program? What’s the big secret?’