know what? I owe it to my mother more. If it hadn’t been for her family’s oil company, and their land that my father developed early on ... we wouldn’t be here today. My mother’s ancestors clung to their oil for years. It’s a matter of honour.’
She put into words what Bond found attractive about her. It was the passion she embodied — whether it was for her work, for sport, her love for her parents, or for the fervent sex that she so thoroughly enjoyed.
As he rubbed the muscles in her shoulders, Bond focused on an unusual jewel in her earlobe. It was the ear he had seen bandaged in the kidnappers’ Polaroid. The base of the diamond was wide, covering something on the skin.
Their eyes met. She knew what he was pondering. Tenderly, he reached out and touched the jewel. She didn’t stop him.
‘He used a pair of wire cutters on it,’ she said. ‘He said he was going to cut my whole ear off and send it to my father. I don’t know why he didn’t.’
‘Can you tell me about him?’
‘His name was Renard. I’ve heard him called Renard the Fox. I learned that from your people after . . . after it was all over. He was. . . horrible. He shouted a lot. He made me . . . do things. He hit me. He snipped my earlobe with wire cutters. It was three weeks of hell. I’m afraid I’ll never fully get over it/
Bond again thought of M’s directive not to let her know that it was Renard who was trying to kill her. He could discern that most of the time Elektra was fine and in control. She was a bit reckless, perhaps, but she seemed to be on top of the business. Nevertheless, he had seen glimpses of a vulnerable, frightened girl who most assuredly still had nightmares about the terrible tiling that had happened to her. Renard was probably the demon in her dreams, and it was best that she didn’t know he was close to her once again.
‘How did you survive?’ he asked her.
She closed her eyes and spoke slowly, as if she could only revisit the incident in the far reaches of her mind. ‘I seduced a guard. Used my body. It gave me control. There was one guard who couldn’t help himself. He had to have me. When the moment was right, I kicked him in his most vulnerable spot. I got a gun, and I just started shooting. I killed . . . three men. Renard wasn't there at the time or I would have killed him, too.’
She trembled a moment. The memory had struck a nerve. She pulled closer to him, nuzzling her face in his chest and stifling a sob. Another chill went down her spine and she shuddered again.
Bond was affected by the story of her ordeal, but he said nothing.
‘For someone so in love with life, I wanted to die,’ she said. ‘For months afterwards, I was a vegetable. But then . . . something snapped. I realised that I had to pull myself out of the lower depths. I hate to say it, but I think my father’s murder may have had something to do with shaking me back to the real world. Someone had to take charge.’ She paused a moment to take a sip of champagne. ‘But what about you? What do you do to survive?’
The truthful answer to that was that he never looked back. Bond didn’t want to reveal too much of himself, though. Instead, he turned the question around and focused it on her.
‘I take pleasure,’ he said, ‘in great beauty.’
For the third time that night their bodies came together. This time, they made it last an eternity.
08 - Journey at Dawn
Bond left Elektra sleeping in her room a couple of hours before sunrise. He quietly made his way to his room, changed into dark clothes, grabbed a few items that might be of use, and crept outside. Two guards on patrol crossed in front of the building. Bond hid in an alcove until they were out of sight, then ran around to the side of the building. He leapt and caught a tree branch beside the fence, swung up and over, and dropped to the other side. He ran to the security annexe, where Sasha Davidov kept his office.
The automatic lock-pick from Q Branch came in handy on the heavy door. With a touch of a button, the device sent sound waves into the lock: there was a ‘click’ and the door opened. Bond stepped inside and shut the door, locking it behind him. Despite having two windows, the office was quite dark, so he held a pen light in his mouth while he searched through desk drawers and filing cabinets. None of it was of any interest - mostly papers, a few pistol magazines, office supplies . . .
He was about to examine a holdall sitting on the floor under the desk when a car’s headlamps shone through the front of the little building. The entire room was bathed in light through the window, but Bond stepped to the side and hid in the shadows. He looked out and saw a Land Rover with the now-familiar Russian Atomic Energy Department
symbols on the side. Sasha Davidov got out of the driver’s seat and looked around furtively. Bond noticed that Davidov’s hand was bandaged and that he was carrying a briefcase.
Davidov moved out of the line of sight. Bond had to move fast. Keys clattered against the lock, and in a moment the door opened.
Davidov stepped inside and turned on the lights. The office was empty, but a breeze was blowing in through an open window. Not suspecting a thing, the Russian slammed the window shut and locked it.
Outside, Bond quietly got up from the cool, dark ground beneath the window, hid behind the Land Rover and peered into the now-illuminated office window. He watched as Davidov removed something from the briefcase and sat at his desk. He took a tool from a drawer and intently worked on whatever the object was in his hands.
Bond moved to the back of the vehicle and opened the hatch. There was an envelope full of papers next to a tarpaulin chat covered something bulky. Bond pulled it back and got a mild shock. It was a corpse, an older man, with a bullet hole in his head. A sudden flash of light from the security annexe diverted Bond’s attention from the truck. Looking at the window again, he saw that Davidov was holding a Polaroid camera at arm’s length and taking a picture of himself.
Considering this, Bond turned again to the dead body in the Land Rover. The corpse was dressed in overalls with the Russian logo plastered on the sleeve. Bond noted that the shirt pocket was tom, probably where an ID card had been.
A torch beam swerved across the road. One of the patrolling guards was approaching. Bond jumped inside the Land Rover and quietly pulled the hatch down.
Davidov drove the Land Rover to an airfield hidden in the woods approximately eight miles away. He was nervous as hell. Renard had scared him badly, he admitted to himself.
And poor Arkov . . . All he had done was to suggest th.it the mission be called off. He would have to be extra careful or he. too, would end up with a bullet in the head. And not one like Renard’s.
At least Arkov had been successful in obtaining the Antonov AN-12 Cub, a Russian military transport plane, which sat on the well-lit runway. Men in overalls surrounded the aircraft, some on top of scaffolding. They were busy plastering Russian Atomic Energy decals on the fuselage and tail. A searchlight swept the airfield, looking for anything that shouldn’t be there.
Davidov drove to the small wooden shed that served as the airfield’s office. He backed up to a debris skip next to the building and parked. He got out and peered through the strand of trees that separated the shed from the runway. The plane was almost ready. He had better get prepared.
His boots crunched on the tarmac as he moved around the Land Rover and opened the rear hatch. Now for the disgusting part . . .
He pushed aside the tarp and grabbed hold of the body.
‘Up we go —’ Davidov said.
The corpse’s head turned and smiled. Davidov gasped.
James Bond swung a back-hand at Davidov, but it was only a glancing blow. Davidov reeled backwards and pulled a gun from his coat; Bond was faster. A single shot from 007’s silenced Walther cut the air with a ‘pffft’ and sent Davidov to the ground. Bond climbed out of the hatch, glanced through the trees at the plane, then crouched beside the dead Head of Security. Sure enough, the dead man’s ID card was clipped to his jacket. Davidov’s freshly-taken Polaroid was crudely pasted on top of what was assuredly the dead man’s face.
His name was Arkov . . .
Bond pulled off the card and pocketed it, then scanned the area for a safe place to hide the body. The debris skip . . .
Bond leaned in to pick up the corpse when Davidov’s cell phone on his belt rang. Bond froze. It rang a second time. If Davidov didn’t answer . . .
Bond picked it up and spoke Russian. ‘Yes?’
A low voice at the other end said, ‘1-5-8-9-2. Copy?’ ‘Yes.’ Was it Renard?
‘Out.’ The line went dead. Bond clipped the phone to his own belt, then heaved Davidov’s body over his shoulder. A beam of light played along the trees between the runway and the Land Rover. Someone was coming!
Bond threw the corpse into the skip just as a large Russian man in overalls emerged from the woods. ‘Let’s go!’ he said. ‘It’s getting late!’
When the man saw Bond’s face and didn’t see another man with him, he registered surprise. ‘What happened to Davidov?’ he asked, ready to pull a gun. ‘I was told to expect him, too.’
‘He was up to his eyes in work,’ Bond said in Russian. ‘He told me to go on alone.’
The man hesitated, then relaxed and shrugged. ‘Got your stuff? Let’s go.’
Bond moved to the Land Rover and looked in the back. What should he take? The holdall he had seen earlier in the office was there, along with the envelope and Davidov’s briefcase.
‘Well?’ the man asked.
Bond grabbed the holdall and the envelope, which he thrust into his inside jacket pocket, and followed the man to the runway. The plane’s engine had fired up and there was a sense of urgency among the men.
‘I’m Truhkin,’ the man said. ‘You must be Arkov.’
Bond grunted affirmatively. The workers had finished with the plane. It now looked as if it belonged to the Russian agency. The Russian pilot approached Bond anxiously. ‘You’re late!’ he shouted. ‘You got a squawk?’
Bond’s eyes narrowed in confusion.
‘A squawk! The transponder codes! If we’re not squawking the right code, they’ll shoot us down!’
Bond hesitated, then said, ‘1-5-8-9-2?’
The pilot nodded, then looked him up and down. His brow creased when he saw Bond’s formal shoes. He glared at Bond with intimidation. ‘And the rest? Did you bring the grease?’
Bond didn’t have a clue. The pilot stared, expectantly. With no choice but to wing it, Bond opened the holdall. He reached inside and, to his relief, found a box of Adidas trainers.
The pilot beamed when Bond revealed them. ‘Excellent!’
The Antonov Cub flew at 482 miles per hour toward the rising sun, then turned north, crossing the Caspian Sea into west-central Asia. The pilot, in his overalls and new Adidas, whistled happily in the cockpit.
Bond sat in the rear between heavily secured cargo pallets. Everything was marked in Russian characters, which Bond easily translated as warnings: DANGER - RADIOACTIVE. There was an empty berth on one side of the aircraft, large enough for an automobile. Truhkin had expressly forbidden him to place anything there.
Whatever Renard was planning, Bond had stumbled on it. He thought about Elektra, and wondered if she would be worried about him. There had been few occasions during his career in which Bond felt nervous about going under cover. This was definitely one of them. He just hoped that he could improvise his role well enough to find out what this was all about and then get out alive.
Truhkin appeared, his tall frame crouched over in the fuselage. He tossed a windbrcaker bearing the Russian logo at Bond.
‘Get ready,’ he said. ‘Ten minutes and we’ll be in Kazakhstan. And make sure you wear the ID.’
Bond nodded as the Russian went back to his seat up front.
Bond got up and went into the lavatory. He shut the door, then removed his wallet. He got Arkov’s ID out of his pocket and placed it on the counter. Next, he bent over and pried open the heel of his SIS field shoe. Inside were useful items such as a small pair of scissors, tape, a screwdriver . . . Bond took the scissors and tape and set to work.
He took out his Universal Exports ID card and carefully cut out his picture. He replaced the card in his wallet and put it back in his pocket. Using the edge of the scissors, he scraped Davidov’s new photo from the ID, revealing the face of the corpse he had found in the Land Rover. Bond affixed his own photo to the ID card with the tape and attached it to his shirt pocket. Well, he thought. Let’s hope that no one knew the real Doctor Arkov by sight wherever the plane was headed.
The plane entered Kazakhstan air space as Bond sat back down in the fuselage. A newly independent country, Kazakhstan was another former Soviet-controlled state that was struggling to keep on its feet. It seemed that all of the countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States had the same problems - rampant crime in the face of a new capitalism, ethnic disputes, and regular economic and political upheaval. Most of what Bond knew about Kazakhstan concerned the Russian-operated space launch facility, the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the centre of the country. He also knew, though, that the country was rich in coal, oil and gas. He had to wait and see exactly what connection the Russian nuclear agency had with Renard, Davidov, and for that matter, King Industries.
The Cub landed at dawn in the western part of the country, in a place of desolation, salt basins and deserts. It was a vast region of strange rock formations and rough terrain. The sun’s heat was already elevating to a desert-like temperature.
Bond followed Truhkin to another Land Rover, again marked with the Atomic Energy Department logo.
I'll drive,’ he said. ‘First time in Kazakhstan?’
‘Yes,’ Bond said.
‘Lovely place,’ Trnhkin said sarcastically as they drove away from the makeshift airfield and onto a dirt road. They went through a rock valley that was decidedly alien in appearance, then eventually came upon a huge mesa with a huddle of low buildings beneath it. As they got closer, Bond could see trucks, Kazakhstani Army personnel carriers, soldiers, and other men in overalls at work.
An explosion off to one side startled them both. A cloud of dust rose from a detonation site five hundred yards away.
When he saw the trucks marked IDA, Bond knew where they were. It was a Russian nuclear testing facility. The IDA, or International Decommissioning Authority, was a United Nations-sponsored organisation that was responsible for managing the decommissioning of nuclear reactors and other radioactive facilities used for research and development in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.
They got out of the Land Rover and approached the main building, the entrance of which was covered by a protective, inflated bubble. Bond could make out someone inside the bubble wearing a radiation-proof suit and tinkering with objects and tools.
A Russian army colonel was standing at the entrance to the bubble. When he saw Bond’s ID card, he smiled, obviously impressed.
‘Welcome to Kazakhstan, Doctor Arkov!’ he said in Russian. ‘I am Colonel Akakievich. I’m a great admirer of your research. It’s not often we see someone of your stature here.’
Bond replied, ‘I go where the work takes me.’
The colonel hesitated a moment. ‘You do have the transport documents . . .?’
Bond patted his jacket and found the envelope he had fortuitously placed there earlier. He handed it over, hoping for the best.
Colonel Akakievich gave the papers a once-over and nodded toward the bubble. ‘Good. They’re waiting for you below. It should be ready. Check with the IDA physicist.’
The figure in the white radiation-proof suit emerged from the bubble. The helmet came off, revealing a most attractive young woman with long light brown hair. She was sweating profusely and paused to take a cloth from a rack and wipe her forehead with it. Then she undid the suit and stepped out of it. She was wearing very short cut-offs, a khaki sports bra, heavy- duty boots, and a hunting knife. Bond guessed that she was an American.
She had an extraordinary figure. Her breasts bulged beneath the bra, and her legs were tanned sleek an
d shapely. Bond noticed that every man in the vicinity stopped what he was doing to gawk at her.
The girl grabbed a bottle of water and guzzled, letting the liquid dribble down her chin and onto her top. Next, she poured the bottle over her shoulders until she was soaking. The clothes clung to her tight body, and her hardened nipples could be seen plainly through the bra. Either she was an exhibitionist, Bond thought, or she just didn’t give a damn.
Bond’s eyes met the colonel’s. Akakievich nodded bitterly, then spat on the floor. He said, in English, so that she could hear, ‘Not interested in men. Take my work for it. We decommissioned four test sites this year . . . and not even a glimmer. ’
Bond offered a disappointed ‘tut tut’ as the colonel walked away.
The girl stepped up to Bond, wiping her rather wide mouth. She had amazing green eyes and sparkling white teeth. Bond guessed that she was probably in her midtwenties. He couldn’t help but notice the IDA tag on her belt and the incongruous peace-sign tattoo just above her hip.
‘Are you here for a reason?’ she asked. She gestured to the
colonel. ‘Or are you just hoping for a “glimmer”?’
Bond attempted a light Russian accent, but spoke English. ‘It would appear the nuclear weapons are not the only thing around here that need defusing.’
The girl frowned. ‘Nice try. And you are?’
‘Mikhail Arkov,’ he said. ‘Russian Atomic Energy Department. And you are — Miss —’
‘Doctor. Jones. Christmas Jones,’ she said. ‘And don’t make any jokes. I've heard them all.’
‘I don’t know any doctor jokes,’ he said.
She gave him a dirty look. ‘Give me the papers. Where’s the shipment going?’
‘The nuclear facility at Penza Nineteen/ Bond said. That much he had gleaned from a cursory scan. He handed them to her. ‘I apologise if my countrymen give you a hard time. I know they’re not all happy to see the International Decommissioning Authority here.’
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