Never Dream Of Dying

by Raymond Benson

  As she moaned softly, closed her eyes, and parted her lips, he gently massaged her eyebrows and forehead. He rubbed her temples and cheekbones, then reached back and pressed on various points in the back of her neck.

  Finally, he took a breast in his hand and used his thumb and forefinger to stimulate the nipple. When it was erect, he slowly and gently twisted it, pulled it, twisted it, pulled it … Tylyn squirmed under him as he alternated between the two breasts. Then, keeping his left hand on one breast and continuing the nipple stimulation, he slid his right hand down to the mound between her legs. Her hair was soft and thin there. She was wet, and his second and third fingers slid inside easily. Tylyn moaned loudly and arched her back as he used his thumb to circle the erogenous zone at the top of her vulva. He kept up this rhythm for several minutes, using her natural lubrication to slide his thumb up and down and around her clitoris, while keeping his two fingers deep within her. Tylyn’s breath increased and the moans became louder until her stomach tensed and she gasped. Bond felt her contract spasmodically around his fingers as she writhed on the bed.

  Later, after she had caught her breath and calmed down, she snuggled next to him, and said, “Don’t you dare leave, James. Don’t you dare.”

  She reached down, grasped him, and proceeded to return the favor.

  But leave he did.

  Much later, after Tylyn was sleeping soundly, Bond woke himself with that internal, trained alarm clock that allowed him to do so at any time, day or night. All he had to do was set his mind to it before falling asleep. It was second nature.

  He slipped out of bed without disturbing her, and dressed in his swim trunks, black trousers, and a black T-shirt. He grabbed the camera and strapped it to his waist, along with one of the new Walther P99 Tactical Knives that he had brought along in his bag. It had a 5 12 blade and fitted neatly into a nylon sheath clipped to the belt. Bond then grabbed the spare key to Tylyn’s cabin, slipped out of the room, and locked the door behind him. He crept down the hallway, purposefully avoiding the lifts, and took the stairs to the lower levels of the ship.

  There were two gangplanks from the Starfish. Because cast and crew had to be able to get to various points in the water, a portable dock had been built at the site. Several speedboats and sportsboats were anchored there, ready to shuttle people to their desired locations. Two gangplanks led from the Starfish to the dock, one for passengers, and a larger one for crew with cargo to load or unload.

  Bond went for the cargo area, not wishing to be seen by someone who still happened to be up. It was fairly well lit, but completely quiet. There was probably a night watchman somewhere, but Bond didn’t see him.

  He moved into the room, stepping slowly until he was able to peer around some stacks of cargo near the open loading door. The sky was dark, but the bridge and dock were well lit with strung bulbs. The water splashed and splattered next to the opening, rocking the bridge slightly.

  There he was—a lone guard in a security officer’s uniform, sleeping in a chair. He was armed, sitting right at the entrance and snoring like a sawmill.

  Bond’s training had included many hours of practicing stealth and he was particularly adept at it. His instructor had said that Bond “moved like a cat.” He was able to walk, run, jump, swim, strike, and kill without making a sound. This ability was essential for someone in his profession to stay alive.

  It was this skill that allowed Bond to run and take a shallow dive into the water without waking the guard.

  The water was much colder than he had expected, but it felt invigorating. It made his senses come alive, totally alert and ready to work.

  He swam slowly but steadily toward the trawler, which he estimated to be about one hundred meters away. No problem. By conserving his strength, he was able to pace himself and arrive at the trawler in ten minutes. When he got there, he found that the trawler had a similar entrance arrangement with a portable loading dock floating outside of the opening.

  It was well lit inside and Bond thought that he heard voices. He climbed out of the water onto the dock, then slithered on his belly to the side of the opening, hugged the wall, and looked inside.

  There were two of them. One was a security guard and the other was none other than Rick Fripp. They were laughing about something. Then, Bond heard Fripp say that he was going to bed.

  Uh oh, Bond thought, that meant he would be coming this way and hopping into one of the boats tied to the platform. Bond shrank into the corner between the hull and the platform, but Fripp never showed. Bond looked inside again and saw that Fripp had left the room through a door leading to another part of the trawler. Where did he go? Bond wondered. Wasn’t he sleeping on the Starfish like everyone else?

  The guard, left alone, began slowly and self-consciously to pace the floor with his hands behind his back, lost in thought.

  Like a cheetah, Bond bolted and rushed at the guard, striking him in the back of the neck with a spear-hand. The man noiselessly crumpled to the floor.

  The place was like a warehouse, with crates and boxes stacked all around. Bond examined each pile and determined that most of it was legitimate production equipment. In one section, set apart by a rope, were crates of explosives. Bond took a look at them, assuring himself that there was nothing illegal there. He noted that they came from an address in Corsica rather than France. The label read “Corse Shipping,” which Bond remembered as being listed on the manifests he had seen in Paris.

  A door was behind the crates of explosives. He listened at it, hearing nothing. Bond tried to open it but it was locked. No time to go back to the guard and find the key on him.

  He unhooked the camera from his belt and turned the dial to the laser setting. He squatted so that he was eye level to the lock, then aimed the camera lens at it. He pushed the shutter button and the bright white-blue laser shot into the metal. Bond held the camera steady until the lock was melted through. He shut off the laser and tried the door. It opened. Bond replaced the camera on his belt and went inside.

  It was a small workshop. Tools were fastened to the wall, and there were two work tables where small pieces of props or machinery were assembled or repaired. On one table were the parts of what looked like a mobile phone. Bond knew that in fact it was some kind of radio transmitter. He leaned in closer to examine its exposed guts and found the tiny antenna.

  Bond examined the other table and found two small crates with lids nailed on. The sides were marked with the warnings to “handle with extreme caution.” Again, “Corse Shipping” labels were plastered on the tops. Bond unsheathed his knife and used it to pry open one of the crates.

  Carefully packed amongst straw and padding were glass containers filled with a white crystalline material. It almost resembled cocaine, but it was much too sparkling for that.

  Could this be the CL-20 that Mathis was looking for? The stolen explosives from the French air force base? If so, then they had ingeniously used the film production as a means of smuggling it out of Corsica.

  He heard a door creak inside the warehouse. Bond cursed softly and moved back away from the table, flattening himself against the wall by the door.

  It opened a few seconds later, and Rick Fripp walked in. Bond didn’t hesitate. As soon as the man had cleared the doorway, Bond locked his fists together and brought them down on the back of the stuntman’s head. Fripp fell to the floor, groaned, and attempted to rise. Bond kicked him with his bare heel in the back of the head. Fripp jerked forward and dropped into unconsciousness.

  Bond took another look around the room to see if there was something he might have missed. Then he had a moment of inspiration.

  Why not? He went to Fripp’s body and pulled his head up. Bond removed the camera again and held it in front of Fripp’s face. With his left hand, Bond opened Fripp’s eye and turned on the ophthalmoscope with his right.

  Fripp groaned, beginning to stir. What was that bright light in his eye?

  Bond focused it into Fripp’s pupil and found t
he retina.

  Fripp moved slowly and moaned even louder. The muscles in his face started to resist Bond’s fingers. His hands started to move. Any second he would recover sufficiently to be able to knock Bond away. So far, though, Fripp had not focused on Bond’s face. He had not been recognized yet.

  Come on! Bond willed himself. Find it! Is it there? The light scanned the retina, skipping over the red blood vessels and the macula until … yes! There it was, the Union tattoo.

  Fripp regained his senses enough to groan with confusion. “Huh?” he mumbled as he looked at Bond, unable to focus his eyes.

  Bond said, “Don’t worry, Mister Fripp, you don’t need glasses. I’m afraid your frequent headaches are being caused by something else.”

  With that, he grabbed Fripp’s curly hair and casually banged his head hard on the floor, knocking the man out again.

  He stood and left the workroom and stepped quietly past the still unconscious guard. As quietly as he had come in, Bond dove into the water and swam back to the Starfish.

  Twenty minutes later, he crawled onto the bridge and peeked into the opening. The guard was still sound asleep. Bond stole past him and out of the cargo area, dripping water and unfortunately leaving a trail.

  He moved into the corridor toward the stairwell, and almost made it when a voice stopped him.

  “You! What are you doing?”

  Bond turned to see none other than Julius Wilcox, the ugly Union killer.

  “You’re all wet! Who are you? What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just felt like a swim,” Bond said, then ducked into the stairway. He ran up the stairs to the next level and waited to see if Wilcox would pursue him. There was no sound. Bond kept going until he got to Tylyn’s level. Using his key, he swept into her cabin, where she was still sleeping like a princess. Bond removed the wet clothes, hung them over the shower stall, dried off, and got back into bed.

  Before falling asleep, Bond decided that he would phone Collette in the morning and have him position Ariel. He would then prepare to leave the Starfish for good. As Julius Wilcox must have recognized him, his life wasn’t worth a penny.

  “Wake up, you fool,” Wilcox said, banging on Essinger’s door.

  When it opened, Essinger, his eyes full of sleep, said, “What do you want? Do you know what time it is?”

  Wilcox pushed Essinger back into his cabin, entered and shut the door. He pulled Essinger up by the pajama collar and growled, “Do you know who that is that’s sleeping with your wife?”

  “Yes, he’s some kind of journalist from England.”

  “What’s his name? ”

  “Bond, I think. James Bond.”

  Wilcox released Essinger, shoving him to the bed.

  “What’s the matter with you?” Essinger spat.

  “That man is an SIS agent, you idiot! We know him! We’ve had dealings with him before.”

  “You’re joking!”

  “You fool, why didn’t you have him checked out when you learned that your wife was dating him?”

  “I didn’t really know she was dating him,” Essinger said, huffily. “That was only evident once they got here. ”

  “We have to take care of this immediately,” Wilcox said.

  Essinger sat up. “I’ll do it. There will be a lot of dangerous stunt work at the shoot tomorrow—er, today. Accidents can happen. They’re inevitable.”

  Wilcox nodded. They had an understanding.

  EIGHTEEN

  THE GETAWAY

  BOND AND TYLYN WERE UP BRIGHT AND EARLY, BUT THE PRODUCTION CREW were awake before dawn. The spectacular boat chase for Pirate Island would begin filming today, and Rick Fripp had estimated that the entire sequence would take a week to shoot. Tylyn was needed only for close-ups, for Betty would be doing the rough stuff. The rusty tanker had been set on fire and was already burning on “low.” On Fripp’s orders the gas could be increased, turning the tanker into an inferno.

  “It’s full of explosives,” Tylyn told Bond. “They’ve been rigging explosives all over the water. It will truly be something to watch.”

  They stood at the rail of the Starfish, observing the preparations. From what Bond could see, last night’s little mishap hadn’t affected Fripp’s working capacity.

  The entire “setting” was an area of approximately a kilometer in diameter. Dotted within the setting were the various disabled boats, the tanker and other obstacles that would figure in the chase. There were four Fountain powerboats that had been outfitted to participate in the scene: two forty-seven foot and two forty-two foot Lightning sportboats.

  Stuart Laurence joined them, for a stuntman was doing most of his scenes in the chase as well. “Those are among the best racing boats in the world,” he explained. “They bought a fleet of powerboats from Reggie Fountain’s company in America—you know, he’s a champion boat racer—and then the production designer created those futuristic hulls for them.”

  “How fast do they go?” Bond asked.

  “Usually they’re at the seventy to eighty miles per hour mark, but Fountain has outfitted them with extra boost that increases that speed. The two forty-twos have twin engines that’ll push the speed up to one hundred and fourteen or so. The other two have triple engines that will kick the speed up to one hundred and twenty,” Laurence said. “I’d love to get behind the wheel of one, but the insurance company won’t let me. All the shots of me at the helm are done at, what, forty miles an hour?”

  “I love speed,” Tylyn said. “I’ve never been in a boat going that fast, but I’m sure I would find it thrilling, not scary.”

  “It’s pretty dangerous,” Laurence said. “Look, they’ve got rescue teams and a medic in ready.” He pointed to a group near the portable dock with another powerboat displaying the international Red Cross symbol.

  Two bulky men whom Bond recognized as a couple of Essinger’s flunkies appeared on the deck and approached them. One of them was Gérard, the fellow he had met in Monte Carlo.

  “Monsieur Bond?” Gérard asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Monsieur Essinger would like a word with you. Could you follow us?”

  Aha, here it was. Well, better now than later.

  Bond smiled broadly and said, “How nice. Tylyn, would you like to accompany me?”

  “Just you, monsieur,” Gérard said.

  Tylyn squeezed his arm. “He probably wants to do an interview after all. Don’t worry, he won’t bite. Much.”

  Bond kissed her cheek and went with the men to the lift. Gérard walked in front, while the other man, a rough-looking man with a hawk nose, took up the rear. They took it to one of the higher levels, where Essinger had his luxury cabin. They escorted him to the door and Hawk Nose knocked. A voice replied, “Come in.”

  Gérard opened the door and held it for Bond. Bond carefully stepped inside, followed by the two goons. Hawk Nose quickly shut the door behind them.

  Two more bodyguards—one wearing a baseball cap and another with an eyepatch—were standing in the middle of the room. They were both holding metal tactical side batons. A blow by one of those with the appropriate force could break a man’s skull.

  Gérard suddenly grabbed Bond from behind, pinning his arms to his sides. Hawk Nose moved around in front to frisk him, removed the Walther, then punched Bond hard in the stomach. Bond winced but had sufficiently tightened the muscles in his abdomen to lessen the blow. Springing into action, he jumped up and kicked Hawk Nose in the chest, knocking him back into Baseball Cap. Bond then brought back his foot hard, digging his heel into Gérard’s shin. Gérard yelped and let go. Bond swung around and spear-handed the man in the neck, crushing the trachea.

  A bolt of pain shot through his left shoulder. Eyepatch had hit him with the baton. The pain was so great that Bond fell to his knees, clutching his shoulder with his right hand. Eyepatch raised the baton to strike again, but Bond put his weight on his good arm, levered himself on the floor, and kicked out at Eyepatch’s legs. The man
lost his balance and fell into Baseball Cap, who was also attempting to hit Bond with his baton.

  Hawk Nose leaped onto Bond and began to punch him, but Bond rolled and managed to get on top. He slugged Hawk Nose hard, then used a split second’s reprieve to reach for the PPK that had been dropped on the floor. But Eyepatch was too fast. He kicked the gun out of Bond’s hand, sending it flying across the room.

  The baton came crashing down again, barely missing Bond’s head. He had sensed it coming and moved an inch to the side; but still, the metal rod smashed into his neck and skinned his ear. He fell over but used the momentum to roll toward his gun.

  “Hold him!” Eyepatch shouted.

  Baseball Cap and Hawk Nose jumped on Bond and attempted to do just that. Bond deftly swept the Walther into his hand and rolled onto his back. He squeezed the trigger twice, blasting holes in Baseball Cap and Hawk Nose’s chests. Hawk Nose catapulted into Eyepatch, who caught and held the screaming man in front of him for cover.

  Bond fired again. The bullet zipped through Hawk Nose’s shoulder but missed Eyepatch. But this gave Bond the time he needed to get to his feet.

  Eyepatch, covered in the other man’s blood, dropped the baton and reached for a Smith & Wesson that he had beneath his own jacket. Bond shot again, this time putting a bright red hole through Hawk Nose’s neck. This one penetrated Eyepatch’s shoulder. He yelled and fell back, dropping Hawk Nose and the handgun. Bond didn’t stay to see what kind of damage he had done. He turned, jumped over Gérard’s body, and ran from the room.

  Bond took the stairs two at a time. He emerged on the dining level and darted through the restaurant, where a few of the cast and crew were having coffee. They gasped as they looked up and saw that the side of Bond’s head was covered in blood and he was carrying a gun.

  Bond heard a gunshot behind him and everyone in the room screamed. Bond leapt behind an empty table and pushed it onto its side. Peering over it, he saw that Eyepatch had followed him down. There was blood seeping through his jacket on his left shoulder, but he was fit enough to fire his gun. Eyepatch shot at the table, blasting a hole through it, too close to Bond’s face for comfort.