“The element of surprise must work in our favor,” he said. “The Union must surely know that we’re going to hit them, so what we need to do is make certain that we hit them before they think we’re going to hit them. They just might be banking on the notion that a raid can’t be organized overnight. That’s why we’re moving so fast. From the satellite films we have obtained, we can see that there has been activity for the last twenty-four hours. We estimate a force of twenty men, but that’s difficult to say; at any rate it looks like they’re moving out. If we don’t get there quickly, they could be gone before the day is over. The raid is on now, gentlemen, and we want to be hitting targets no later than noon.”
Someone asked what the objective was—to take prisoners, or what?
“Shoot to kill anyone that moves, except for two people,” Bond said. “There is a hostage in the basement. You’ll find his photo in the packet. My squad is going after him. Once the hostage is safe, we can blow the house to kingdom come. Secondly, everyone must be on the lookout for the blind man, the Union’s leader. That photo in your packet was taken recently in Monte Carlo. He is our primary objective and is wanted alive. That said, if the rest of his men meet with unfortunate accidents, I’m not going to blink twice.”
The French officer resumed speaking. “We’re in three squads. Each squad will assault a different side of the building. Your squad leader will brief you on the specifics. We’ll all be equipped with headsets so that we can communicate with each other. We leave in one hour. Good luck.”
Bond checked his weapons—the Walther knife and the reliable P99, plenty of extra magazines, a bullet-proof vest and headset. As an afterthought, he clipped the Q-Branch camera to his belt. Commandant Perriot approached him and said, “I just want you to know, monsieur, that it will be a privilege serving with you. After witnessing your courage yesterday in Cannes, I would follow you anywhere.”
“Thank you for volunteering,” Bond said. “Before we leave, I need to make a phone call.” He found Marc-Ange Draco’s business card in his wallet and said, “I know someone who might be able to help us.”
Le Gérant got off the phone with one of his most trusted colleagues and told Julien, the bookkeeper, “They are not going to be able to get together a strike force in one day’s time, just as I thought. We’ve been given a reprieve. Tell the boys that they don’t have to kill themselves to pack. Instead of being out of here by noon today, we have until midnight tonight. All right?”
“Oui, monsieur,” Julien said and marched out of the office.
But Le Gérant had a bad feeling in his gut. Something was wrong. Should he effect his escape now?
He stepped to a window, even though he couldn’t see the view of the Corsican mountains around the property. Remember what the dreams have told you, Le Gérant said to himself. His last dream was a testament to his upcoming triumph, for in it he had slain the majestic stag. That meant that there was nothing to worry about. He didn’t need to run so soon. The dreams had predicted that he would emerge victorious.
And dreams never lied.
The French army loaned them three Aerospatiale (Eurocopter) AS 565 Panthers armed with cannon pods, Mactra Mistral AAMs, HOT AT missiles, rockets and torpedoes. Nine men in each chopper were quite comfortable as they made the journey from Nice to southern Corsica. As Bond looked down at the broccoli-like clumps of trees and the rough terrain of the rocky mountains, he thought again of the phone call he had made earlier and how it would affect the mission.
Never mind, he told himself. Get on with it.
The helicopters flew over Propriano and headed east toward Levie. Bond spoke into the headset, “This is it, gentlemen. Prepare for Phase One.”
Every man in each chopper jumped up, checked their equipment, lowered the safety goggles on their helmets, and stood at attention near the open door. They were armed with M-4 A2 assault rifles, handguns, grenades, bullet-proof vests and knives.
“Monsieur Bond?” Perriot said on the headset.
“Yes?”
“I just received word that Assault Team B successfully raided Corse Shipping in St. Florent. Emile Cirendini has been arrested.”
“One down, two hundred to go …” Bond said.
The choppers neared the property, split up, and flew to respective points of a triangle in the sky. Bond’s helicopter would drop the men at the back of the house, where the vehicles were parked. Another would land in front, inside the electrified fence. The third would hover above the building and watch all sides of the property, attacking where necessary.
Bond looked out and saw the house and grounds—the strange hybrid of Moroccan and Corsican architecture, the circular field that surrounded the house and the fence. The gate looked as if it had been repaired.
There were a lot of men outside, especially in the back. A lorry was parked by the house and workers were busy loading things into it. Several other vehicles—4 × 4s, the limousine and a few cars—were sitting at the edge of the parking area, yielding the space to the lorry. At least four guards were in front of the building.
By the time the choppers were above the property, the Union men knew that they were under attack. Well trained and prepared, they dropped what they were doing, grabbed weapons and ran for cover or their defense posts.
“Hit them!” Bond commanded. “Go go go!”
All three helicopters let off rockets. One went straight for the front door of the house, directly over the guards’ heads. The entire façade crumbled in a mass of flame and smoke. The second shot hit the side of the building, where Bond thought the barracks might be. The third rocket hit the lorry that was already nearly full of the Union’s equipment. In Bond’s opinion, it exploded with satisfying intensity.
The speed with which the return fire began surprised them all. The Union men were disciplined, well organized and they knew what to do. As many of them were former professional soldiers, each man could be a formidable opponent. An army of them was daunting indeed.
Bond’s chopper flew within ten feet of the ground and he gave the order to jump. He went first, leaping out of the aircraft and landing on his feet. The others followed him, spraying the area with bullets. Bond ran for cover behind one of the parked cars and let loose a volley of ammunition at two men crouched behind the limousine. They were armed with what appeared to be Uzis.
Bond unclipped a grenade, pulled the pin and tossed it over to the limo. It rolled underneath the car. The men saw it and started to run but it was too late. They were caught in the blast, which was intensified by the limo’s exploding petrol tank.
Bond and two British men ran through the flames and into the open garage. They were met with streams of gunfire, so they hit the ground and rolled, firing as they went. One of the British soldiers was struck. His body continued to roll until it lodged against a stack of tires. Bond and the other man concentrated their fire on the area of the garage where two opponents had found cover behind a 4 × 4.
On the other side of the house, things were not going so well. The Union managed to blow a hole in the hovering third helicopter with a twenty-year-old US M40 recoilless rifle that had been hidden on the roof of the building. The chopper wobbled in the air for a few seconds before it burst into flame and plummeted to the ground with a tremendous crash. All nine men inside were killed instantly.
“We’ve lost a third of our force,” Bond heard Perriot say in his headset. “We’re going to try to take out the gunner on the roof.”
Bond shouted to the other man with him, “Cover me!” The soldier sprayed the 4 × 4 with his M16 while Bond rose and ran like the devil toward the open door to the house. The soldier’s bullets punctured all four tires and riddled the vehicle with holes. This flushed out the two Union men, who made a desperate run for the open air. The British soldier picked them both off easily, then gave Bond the thumbs-up sign as he reached the door.
Bond entered the guards’ quarters and found it deserted. He kicked the door to the corridor open and ran
down the familiar, blank hallway toward the staircase leading downstairs.
There was no one about … it was too easy. Bond held the P99 tightly in both hands, ready to assume firing stance. He inched to the stairwell and peered down. Stepping quietly he went all the way to the basement and again found it empty.
He ran to the locked wooden door and banged on it. “René, are you in there?”
“James?”
Bond fired the P99 into the lock, demolishing it. He opened the door, ran inside, and found Mathis standing against the wall.
“Are you ready to get out of here, my friend?” Bond asked.
There was something about Mathis’ joyless expression that Bond should have interpreted more quickly, but in his haste to free his friend he had been careless. Still, his reflexes were just fast enough to prevent grievous bodily injury.
The wiry little guard Antoine jumped onto Bond’s back and attempted to plunge a knife into him but Bond used the man’s own momentum and weight to throw him over his shoulder. In doing so, however, he dropped the P99. The gun slid across the stone floor and into the straw in the corner.
Antoine sprung off the floor with surprising agility and lunged at Bond again with the knife, a long and slender Vendetta Corse. Bond twisted and avoided being stabbed, then swung and kicked the Corsican with his right foot. The blow hit Antoine in the chest, knocking him back into Mathis. They fell on the floor, giving Bond the time to unsheath his own knife.
Antoine got back on his feet and held the knife in front of him.
“You want to dance, my friend, let’s dance!” he said. He swished the knife in the air a couple of times. Bond, although adept at knifefighting, knew that he was no match for a Corsican who had grown up with a knife as an extension of his hand.
“René, the gun, over in the corner!” he shouted.
Antoine leaped forward and Bond barely feinted in time. The blade sliced a bit of the material on the side of his vest. Bond spun and went into a crouch just as Antoine swung the knife over his head. Bond bounced forward with his knife pointed at the little man, but Antoine was like a circus acrobat. He performed a short leap, did a somersault in mid-air, and landed on his feet behind Bond.
How the hell … ?
Before Bond could turn around, the killer slashed the back of his neck with the blade. Bond felt a wrenching sting before falling forward, rolling out of the way and jumping to his feet.
Antoine stood across the room, grinning, his knife dripping with blood. Bond felt the back of his neck with his left hand. It was wet and there was a painful cut just below his hairline, but luckily it wasn’t very deep.
Antoine gestured with his free hand, “Come on!”
Angered now, Bond rushed him with the knife, but Antoine was too fast. The Vendetta Corse hit home and made a nasty gash on Bond’s upper arm. Bond twisted and retreated to avoid another slash, but he had backed into the wall—the worst possible position to be in during a knife fight.
Antoine raised the knife by the blade, ready to throw it at Bond. In that split second, Bond considered unsnapping the PPK but knew that he wouldn’t be able to draw the gun before the Union man released the knife. He was done for.
A gunshot reverberated in the stone cell, its volume magnified tenfold by the enclosed space. Antoine recoiled as if he had been hit with a sledgehammer between the shoulder blades. The knife fell from his hand as he staggered a couple of steps toward Bond. His eyes glazed over and then he collapsed with a thud.
Mathis stood behind him, Bond’s P99 in his hand.
“I hope that was him and not you, James,” Mathis said.
“You did just fine, René,” Bond said, immensely relieved. “You haven’t lost your aim at all.”
“They didn’t tell me anything, James, but I knew you were coming soon. They started to pack up last night and move out of here. You are lucky that you got here before they left.”
“That’s because they thought we weren’t going to be ready to hit them until tomorrow. They believed that they had another half day to clear out,” Bond explained.
“How is that?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Bond said. “Do you know if Le Gérant is still here?”
“I cannot tell you, James,” Mathis replied. “I’ve been down here in the dark the entire time. As a matter of fact, I would be in the dark no matter where I was, so I’m not the best person to ask.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Bond said. “Let’s get out of here.” He took the gun from his friend and led him out of the cell.
On ground level, Commandant Perriot and his squad had successfully taken out the guards in front of the house. They rushed in through the burning opening that had been created by the rocket and were met with heavy resistance inside. Six Union men had barricaded themselves in the foyer and they shot three RAID officers before the latter could find cover. Perriot ordered one of his squad members, a man carrying a flame thrower, to “Barbecue the bastards.” The officer readied the instrument and walked through the opening. He loosed with a spray of fire that resembled a dragon’s breath. The Union men screamed as they were hit. Four of them panicked and ran, their clothes ablaze. Marksmen shot them as they emerged from the house. The other two were burnt to a crisp where they crouched.
Perriot led the rest of the squad further inside. It didn’t take them long to find the stairs to the roof, ascend them, and assume positions for an assault. Two men bravely volunteered to go up first. They burst through the hatch, firing their M16s as they climbed. The two men manning the M40 pointed it at the hatch and sprayed it with bullets. One of the RAID men went down, but the other successfully hit the two shooters. The rest of the team emerged from the stairs and made a clean sweep of the roof, making sure that no other Union men were hiding there.
Bond brought Mathis out through the back. He signaled his helicopter with the headset; it came down and landed in the field. Bond helped Mathis get inside, told him to sit tight, and gave the pilot the go-ahead to ascend to a safe position.
“Commence Phase Two,” Bond said into his headset.
He re-entered through the back after verifying with Perriot that his squad was accomplishing its goals. They had lost too many men, but the Union force didn’t appear to be as strong as they had expected.
Bond made his way through the war-torn building until he passed the exam room where he had been tortured. Bond kicked the door open and found Dr. Gerowitz cowering behind the exam chair. The man raised his hands and screamed, “Don’t shoot! Please! I am unarmed! I was just following orders!”
Bond leveled the P99 at him and said, “I can overlook what you did to me, doctor. This is for what you did to Mathis.”
He squeezed the trigger and gave the ophthalmologist a third eye.
Bond left the room and continued into the bowels of the building. He approached the intersection to another corridor and peered around the corner. Two guards were waiting at the end of the hall in front of a closed, ornate wooden door, their guns aimed in his direction. Bond pulled the pin out of a grenade and tossed it at them. The blast shook the whole house.
He ran around the corner, stepped over the bodies, and kicked the broken door out of the way.
This had to be Le Gérant’s inner sanctum. It was an office, elegantly furnished with an unusual mixture of Berber rugs and tile work, yet there was also a Western sensibility to the place. Bond went through a door into a large bedroom that was similarly decorated. No one was there. There didn’t appear to be any other way out of the room. He went back into the outer office and heard Perriot in the headset say, “Monsieur Bond, we have set explosives through most of the house. Just let us know when you are ready.”
“Not yet,” Bond said. “I’m still looking for the golden goose.”
He made a cursory search of the desk for any clues that might point to where Cesari might be. Had he already left? Perhaps he had decided to abandon his home as soon as he had found out that the Cannes project had failed.
>
He went back into the bedroom and examined the walls. He opened the wardrobe and pushed back the clothes hanging there. The light caught the back wall of the wardrobe oddly, making it appear at an angle. Bond touched the wall and it moved. It was a secret door and it was ajar!
Bond opened it, revealing stone steps leading down into darkness. He unclipped a torch that he had on his utility belt, switched it on, and told Perriot where he was going.
“Let me send some backup to help you,” the commandant said.
“No,” Bond insisted. “I work alone. If I’m not back in ten minutes, that’s a different story.”
He descended the stairs and found himself in a dark, damp cavern. A path led between two stalagmites into a pitch-black tunnel. Bond entered the tunnel which, before long, began to twist and turn. Eventually it came to a fork.
Now where?
He gambled and took the path to the right. Soon, he ran into a T intersection.
The damned place was a labyrinth.
He went right again and noticed that the cavern floor was sloping down. It grew steeper and soon the tunnel spread into such a large chamber that Bond couldn’t see the other side. As he began to traverse it, he had an overpowering sensation that he was being watched. He stood in one place and turned 360 degrees, shining the torch all around him, but he couldn’t see a thing. He took a step, intending to continue walking across the chamber when suddenly a figure rushed toward him from the darkness. Bond raised the P99 and fired but a long, metal object slammed into his left shoulder. He dropped the torch and it rolled down the steep cavern floor and disappeared off a ledge.
The cavern was plunged into total darkness. Bond was completely blind. With the P99 pointed in front of him, he slowly turned around again, listening carefully.
He thought that he heard something to his right, twisted, and fired the gun.
The hard metal object struck him again in the back. He fell to his knees and felt the rush of air next to him in time to deflect a second blow with his arm. He turned and fired his gun in that direction, but it was no use.
Never Dream Of Dying Page 27