They drove to the military headquarters in Chios Town. It was a small but efficient base made up of several beige-and-white buildings of brick and plaster. Jeeps and trucks were kept under camouflaged nets. A large gate in front kept nonmilitary personnel out of the area.
The jeep was waved through and Bond and Niki were led to an office where a tall man awaited them.
He spoke English. “Hello, I’m Lieutenant Colonel Gavras. I’m in charge right now. Brigadier General Georgiou is on leave.”
Niki showed the man her credentials and said, “This is James Bond of the British Secret Service. We have reason to believe that a terrorist is hiding somewhere on the island, and that General Georgiou is involved. It is imperative that we find the terrorist tonight.”
“That’s a tall order, Miss Mirakos, and quite an accusation.”
“Where is the general?”
“He’s supposed to be in Spain.”
Bond interrupted. “Can we get a jeep and driver to take us around the island?”
“It’s pitch-dark,” Gavras said. “You’ll probably want to wait until the morning.”
“There isn’t time,” Bond said. “The man is probably planning something for tonight.”
Gavras frowned and looked at Niki’s papers again.
“My orders come from the head of the Secret Service, sir,” she said.
“I see that. Well, I’ll see what I can do.”
“Another thing,” Bond said. “This boy who was shot. Is he still in a coma?”
“Sergeant Major Sambrakos recovered consciousness yesterday, as a matter of fact.”
“Can we see him?”
He frowned again. “Let me make a call.”
Sergeant Major Panos Sambrakos lay with a dozen tubes connected to his body. He looked weak and disoriented.
“Panos?” the nurse said in Greek. “Panos, these people are from the Greek Secret Service. They’d like to ask you some questions.”
Bond and Niki greeted him, and Sambrakos’s eyes flickered.
“Ask him if he knows General Georgiou,” Bond said.
Niki asked him and Sambrakos nodded.
“Who shot him and why?”
Again she asked the questions. Sambrakos replied and closed his eyes. Niki said, “He says it was General Georgiou who shot him and left him for dead. He doesn’t know why.”
“What about the missile? Ask him about the missile.”
Niki spoke again, and the boy replied softly and slowly. “He says that there was a Pershing missile hidden in a barn up north. General Georgiou told him that it was a secret, and that if he wanted his military career to stay clean, he should keep it that way. On the night he was shot, the general and two strange men were planning to take it somewhere.”
“Ask him if he knows if the missile was armed or not.”
The boy looked at Bond and replied in English, “It wasn’t armed.”
Bond said, “Don’t worry Panos, we’ll get the bastard.”
They thanked him and left the hospital room.
“My bet is that Romanos has fashioned his own warhead.”
“How will we find him?”
“It’s not that big an island, is it?”
They started by heading west toward Karyes.
“Where might a militant group set up camp?” Bond asked.
“There’s nowhere they could do it without being noticed,” Gavras said. He was driving the jeep himself.
“No abandoned villages, old buildings that are not in use anymore?”
He shook his head. “There are villages on the island that are small and practically invisible. But I doubt an operation like the one you’re talking about could even exist on the island.”
“Believe me, it does,” Bond said.
Karyes wasn’t promising, so the jeep moved on until it came to a crossroads. Avgonima was straight ahead, and Anavatos was to the right.
“Wait a minute,” Gavras said. ‘There’s Anavatos. No one lives there. Well, a few old people do down at the base of the cliff.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an ancient village built on a mountain. It’s all in ruins now, but a few businessmen have bought some land and hope to turn it into a tourist attraction someday. They’re slowly moving in and renovating the ruins.”
“Let’s see it.”
“It’s a long shot.”
“Romanos would want to place his missile somewhere high up. I want to see this place.”
The dark road snaked up into the hills until it stopped at the base of the village. The residents had all gone to bed, for there were no lights at all in any of the houses. The moonlight cast an eerie glow on the cliff. The whitish ruins stood out sharply in contrast to the blackness of the mountain. They looked like ghostly artifacts of another world and another time.
“How do you get up there?” Bond asked.
“On foot,” Gavras said. “You just have to go up the path there, see? It winds all around the ruins and eventually gets to the top. Be careful, though. In the dark it can be quite dangerous. At the top is a sheer cliff drop on the other side. It’s where the residents of the village jumped and committed suicide instead of being taken prisoner by the Turks a hundred years ago or so.”
Bond thought briefly of Charles Hutchinson and wondered if he might have been thrown off that cliff.
“I’m going,” he said. He reached into a backpack where Niki had placed his belongings that she had brought from his hotel in Athens. He pulled out Major Boothroyd’s night-vision goggles, then checked his Walther P99 to make sure the magazine was completely full. He stuck two extra magazines in his pocket.
“I’m coming with you,” Niki said.
“I think I had better go alone,” Bond said. “I’m just going to do a quick reconnaissance. Give me a half hour.”
Before Niki could protest, Bond walked away from the jeep toward the structures at the base of the cliff. Suddenly there was a flash of bright light. A tremendous explosion blew the jeep over on its side. Both Niki and Gavras were thrown several feet.
“Niki!” Bond shouted, and ran to her. She was dazed and confused, and there was a nasty cut on her forehead.
“What happened?” she mumbled.
“Someone fired a bazooka, I think,” Bond said. “From up the cliff.”
She tried to get up, but her leg was bent awkwardly behind her. “Oh God,” she said, gasping. “My leg. I’ve twisted it. What about the colonel?”
Bond moved over to Gavras. His body was still and lifeless.
“We’ve lost him. I’m going to call for help if the radio is still working.”
The smoking jeep had a large hole in the back end but was basically in one piece. Bond unclamped a fire extinguisher from the floorboard and put out the flames, then climbed inside to try the Motorola radio. Surprisingly, he got a signal to the base and made a report.
He then ran back to Niki with a charred blanket he had found in the back of the vehicle, and wrapped it around her.
“Help is on the way,” he said. “Stay here. I’ve got to go up and see what I can find.”
She nodded. “Don’t worry about me, I’ll be okay. It only hurts if I think about making love to you.”
He affectionately placed his left palm on her cheek. “I’ll be back.”
He left her there in the dark and went up past the closed taverna and onto the main stone path that ascended the cliff. She was a strong girl, she would be fine, he thought. He couldn’t stop to help her—there was no telling when Romanos was planning to initiate his attack on Turkey. Now that Romanos knew they were there, he could set it off at any time.
At night, Anavatos was an eerie place. The ruins looked war-torn and skeletal in the moonlight. It was a black-and-white world of ghostly shapes and shadows. Bond kept thinking that specters were moving about, watching his every move. The spirits of the dead Greeks who threw themselves off the mountain were haunting him, taunting him, urging him forward so that he too co
uld take the fatal plunge into blackness.
Bond put on the night-vision goggles and things improved immensely. The infrared filters turned the little moonlight into a warm green glow that enabled him to see the path clearly. The shapes and shadows were still all around him, and they weren’t any less unnerving, but at least he could find his way up the cliff without groping.
The ascent reminded him of the ruins at Monemvasia, except that these were far more desolate and lonely. The narrow passages were claustrophobic, with broken buildings on all sides gaping at him like openmouthed tombs.
At one point, he was able to look down and note his progress. He could see the path he had traversed zigzagging down through the ruins to the base of the mountain below. He could barely discern the outline of the overturned jeep, and the two figures lying on the ground nearby.
Bond kept going up. At the halfway point, he stopped to get his bearings and take a look at what was above him. A large structure was at the summit of the cliff. There was no sign of any lights coming from it, of course, but Bond guessed that the Decada was hiding there. Turning a corner, he was met head-on by a man dressed entirely in black. A fist plunged into Bond’s stomach, causing him to double over. A boot rammed into his face, and he fell to the hard ground. Another kick assaulted his ribs.
He had the wind knocked out of him and was struggling to catch his breath when he heard the unmistakable click of a semiautomatic handgun being cocked. Bond swung his right arm out and across the man’s shin. His spear-hand chopped the bone with enough force to break a block of ice. The man yelped and fell down.
Bond jumped up and gave him a taste of his own medicine, kicking him twice in the ribs and once in the face. The man lay motionless.
Bond continued to climb, rubbing his side to make sure nothing was broken.
When he reached the top, Bond took a look at the ledge, below which was a seemingly bottomless canyon of trees and rocks. He then carefully moved around the large building, listening for the slightest sound.
He had completely circled the building before he saw the ventilation grille partially covered by a plant. It was built into the bottom of one of the walls, and smoke was trickling out of it. If Bond had not been wearing the goggles, he never would have seen it. The goggles had picked up the faint light coming from the vent, and the smoke was silhouetted neatly over the illumination.
Bond bent down and examined the vent. It would be easy to pry off but that might make too much noise. He tried to budge one side of the grille, but it squeaked from the rust. Bond used some natural lubrication to loosen the vent—he spat on his fingers and ran them across the edges. Once they were moist, he tried again. This time, the grille pulled out of the wall with only a slight scraping sound.
The opening was big enough to squeeze through. He looked inside and saw a floor of carved stone. It was dimly lit, probably by candlelight. He listened to see if anyone was in there, then he slowly put his feet through and wormed his way into the shaft. He turned over onto his stomach, held on to the edge of the vent opening, and hung over the floor of the room. He let go and dropped to the ground.
He was in some kind of temple, he thought. There was a stone altar at the front of the room, and there were benches around the perimeter. The middle of the floor was empty. There was only one way out of the room, so Bond stepped lightly to the hanging curtains and listened.
Hearing nothing, Bond parted the curtains and looked out. It was a hallway, lit by a single burning torch mounted on the wall. If the inside of the Persephone looked old, it was nothing compared to the interior design of this place. Bond felt as if he were really walking through a building in ancient Greece.
Bond removed his goggles and let them hang around his neck. He drew the Walther and held it in his left hand—his right palm still hurt too much to handle the weapon effectively. He took a step at a time, watching and listening.
He came to a closed wooden door and listened. Silence.
Bond tried the handle. It clicked softly and the door opened.
It was another dim, empty stone room, except that a large equilateral triangle made of ten points was on the wall directly ahead. The points were made of little red light bulbs, all of them lit except the last three on top.
When Bond walked into the room, lights flashed on around him.
Eight men held Uzis trained on him from all sides. Konstantine Romanos stood at the top of a stone staircase to the left.
“Welcome to Anavatos, Mr. Bond,” Romanos said.
TWENTY-FIVE
THE FACE OF DEATH
BOND WAS DISARMED AND THEN LED THROUGH A SERIES OF STONE CORRIDORS to a large dark space. Romanos flicked a switch and electric lamps made to look like torches illuminated the room. It was a missile launch pad. The Pershing 1a was mounted on an M656 transport truck, aimed at the ceiling. The double hatch in the ceiling was closed.
Besides Romanos, Bond counted eight armed guards, a man in a military uniform whom he surmised to be General Georgiou, and four women dressed in civilian clothes. One of the women was Hera Volopoulos. He recognized another as Melina Papas, who had a metal briefcase handcuffed to her wrist. It was identical to the case that Charles Hutchinson had brought from America.
“You have done my organization a considerable amount of damage, Mr. Bond,” Romanos said. “You don’t deserve to die quickly. In ancient Greece, criminals were often tortured in public. They were kept alive as long as possible so that their suffering would be prolonged. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to indulge myself with the pleasure of watching your agony. I have my orders from the gods. We must abandon our headquarters here in Anavatos. I am sure that by now the Greek military and secret service are on their way.”
Another guard entered and whispered something to General Georgiou. The general then said something to Romanos in Greek.
“Ah, our transport has just arrived,” Romanos said. He turned to one of the women and issued an order. She nodded and left the room.
“Mr. Bond, this is not the end of the Decada. We will regroup at another location and continue our path. We will, however, complete the task we began here so many months ago.”
He gestured to the missile. “As you see, a Pershing. It’s been missing from NATO for a long time. We happened to find it and we fit it with a warhead we got through our Russian friend, Number Four. The Russian mafia drove a hard bargain, but we eventually got a good deal. As you may have guessed, it will detonate over Istanbul. This is a small price for the Turks to pay for northern Cyprus.”
“It’s just going to cause chaos all over Europe, Asia, and the Middle East!” Bond said.
Romanos nodded to the guards. They grabbed Bond and pulled him down onto a table. The men held him in place as Romanos flipped a switch on a control panel. Metal cuffs shot out of the table and snapped over Bond’s ankles and wrists. He was now horizontal, helpless and vulnerable.
“Do you like puzzles, Mr. Bond?” Romanos asked. “My maths students like puzzles. Well, some of them do. I give them fiendishly diabolical puzzles on their exams. I enjoy games of chance, crosswords, riddles … but I truly love mathematical puzzles. How were you as a student, Mr. Bond?”
Bond just stared at him incredulously.
“Don’t tell me,” Romanos said. “You were kicked out of Eton, after which you went to a military school. I would bet that mathematics was not one of your strong subjects. Am I right?”
Bond closed his eyes. The man was indeed correct. Although he was adept at many, many things, Bond was not a mathematician.
Romanos stepped over to the missile and pointed to a panel on the base of the launcher.’
“I imagine you possess the capability of stopping the launch if you had access to the controls. A man of your expertise has probably disarmed hundreds of bombs, haven’t you? Surely you can stop a Pershing missile from launching? Do you see this panel? Inside are the launching controls, covered by a thin glass cover that serves as a safeguard. You see, this entire comp
lex is armed with explosives.”
He pointed to four egg-shaped devices mounted in the ceiling.
“They will go off if that glass cover is broken without following a certain procedure. You must deactivate the alarm system to get to the controls.”
He took a notepad from his pocket and scribbled on it for a few seconds. He tore off the piece of paper and opened the launching mechanism panel, then carefully placed the notepaper inside and closed the panel.
Romanos looked at his watch and twisted a timer knob on the control board. He then indicated a switch. “When I flip this switch, the timer will start. In four minutes from that instant, you will be released from the table. In four more minutes, the doors on the ceiling will open and the missile will launch automatically. However, I’ve written down a puzzle on the piece of paper that’s now inside the panel. The answer to the puzzle will tell you how to disarm the alarm system. Once you’ve done that, you’ll then have however many seconds left to stop the launch. If you can get to those controls, you have my permission and blessing to stop the launch. This was the gods’ idea, not mine. They admire you for some strange reason. They have shown mercy on you and have ordered me to give you this one, slim chance, however hopeless. It also amuses the hell out of me. Think you’re up to it? By the way, the puzzle I’ve given you has taken my students anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour to solve. That’s why I’m confident that when five minutes is up, you’ll be scrambling around on the outside of this missile and scratching your head like a primate.”
General Georgiou said something to Romanos.
Romanos nodded and said, “Number Nine has been good enough to fly a helicopter here to pick us up. We must go. One last thing. Alfred Hutchinson was never a member of the Decada. Manville Duncan obtained the copy of his disk and gave it to us, of course. Alfred was an old fool. He could have been my partner. We could have become rich together and perhaps ruled a country or two. Instead he chose to expose us and betray me. If he hadn’t, you might have been spared all of this. Goodbye, Mr. Bond. May the gods … have mercy on your soul.”
The Facts Of Death Page 27