by John Gardner
"Well done, James. You got the frequency, I presume?" Jay Autem Holy said from beside him.
"Yes." His voice sounded numb.
"I knew it. Good. Give it to me now.
Bond parroted the figures, and the decimal point.
"Where are we going?" Holy repeated the frequency, asking Bond for confirmation. By now they were moving smoothly back on to the motorway.
"Where are we going, James? Don't worry. We're going to live through an important moment in history.
First, Heathrow Airport. All the formalities have been taken care of. As we're just a little late, we're cleared to drive straight up to our private jet. We're going to Switzerland. Be there in a couple of hours. Then we have another short journey. Then yet another kind of flight. I shall explain it all later. You see, yesterday morning, long before you woke for breakfast, while it was still dark, the team from Erewhon carried out a very successful raid. They stole a small landing strip and an airship. In the morning, James, we're all going for an airship ride.
To change history.
A mile or so back down the road, the observer in the trail car had noted that their target seemed to pull off the motorway for a few minutes. "We're closing on him.
Can't make it out. You want me to call in?"
"Give it a couple of minutes." The driver shifted in his seat.
"Ah. No." The observer stared at the moving blip which was Bond's homer. "No, it's okay. Looks as though they were right. He's still heading west. Lay you odds on them picking him up between Oxford and Banbury." But the Bentley had, in fact,just passed them, going in the opposite direction, hurling itself back towards Heathrow and a waiting executive jet.
THE MAGIC CARPET
THE EXECUTIVE JET had Goodyear symbols all over it a smart livery, with the words Good Year flanking the winged sandal. It also had a British registration.
Bond resisted the temptation to make a run for it, try to attract attention, or cause a commotion. The realisation that he was outnumbered, outgunned and at an extreme disadvantage held him back.
Whoever had laid out the ground plan of this operation, Holy, Rahani, or the inner council of SPECTRE itself, had done so with admirable attention to detail. For all he knew, the whole gang on board could have a genuine affiliation to Goodyear. In any case, he did not even know whether the ASP was loaded. So far there was at least a small amount of trust between him and the main protagonists.
Exploit that trust to the full, he told himself, and just go along for the ride.
After takeoff an attractive girl served drinks and coffee. Bond took the coffee, not wishing to dull any of his senses. He then excused himself and went to the pocketsized lavatory at the rear of the aircraft.
The ever-watchful Simon sat near the door, eyeing him with wary amusement. But there was no attempt at restraint.
Inside he took out the ASP and slipped the magazine from the butt.
It was, as he had thought, empty.
Whatever else happened, ammunition or another weapon was a priority.
Back in his seat, Bond took stock. The takeover of the Goodyear base, together with the airship Europa, had already taken place hours before Bill Tanner had checked. True, the Swiss police were now alerted, but they would only make SPECTRE' S task easier by keeping out any unwanted meddlers. The only possibility of the Service suspecting anything amiss would be the discovery that the surveillance cars had lost him - but heaven knew when they would find out. These people had taken no chances. By stripping him, they had effectively cut off any possible pursuit. The surveillance teams could be led a pretty dance, all over the country, following the constant bleeps of the homers coming from a pile of clothes in a lorry or car.
Not for the first time in his career, Bond was truly alone, with no way of warning anyone in authority. On the face of it, there was very little he could do to stop the airship's scheduled flight over Geneva, or prevent use of the Russian and American ciphers. Even the high security classification of these ciphers would work against them.
If M was correct and the SPECTRE plan turned on the operation of the American Ploughshare cipher or its Russian equivalent, there would be no worldwide alert while Russian and American leaders were locked in their Summit talks. The damage would already have been done before they knew there was a crisis.
Sitting next to Jay Autem Holy, he reflected on the ingenuity of the plan, which would denude the two superpowers of their one true weapon in the power balance. It was, of course, what many people had dreamed of; protested for, talked and argued about for years. M had stressed this at the meeting in the house off Northumberland Avenue.
He was convinced that a "phased run-down of both sides' nuclear armouries was a reasonable solution. For the two superpowers to be stripped overnight of their major weapons would destroy the tenuous stability that had prevailed since the Second World War. Operation Down Escalator was, Bond thought, an appropriate name, borrowing from that clumsy term, dc-escalation, bandied about by politicians and protesters alike.
He dozed, not asleep, but conserving his energies for the time when ingenuity and strength might be needed.
Yet in that state, pictures of the aftermath of Down Escalator, as described by his chief; churned over and over in his mind. There would be a worldwide economic crisis, with a market crash of enormous proportions, all confidence lost in the two superpowers. M had said that any economist or social historian could map out the events which would follow the undercutting of financial stability. The United States and the Soviet Union would be at the mercy of any other nation, however small, which possessed its own nuclear capability. As he took in the pictures M had drawn, Bond became even more determined to prevent Operation Down Escalator, no matter what the cost to himself.
"Anarchy will rule,' M had said. "The world will divide into uncertain alliances and the man in the street, no matter what his birthright, nationality, or politics, will be forced to accept a way of life which will drop him into a dark and bitter well of misery. Freedom, even the compromise freedom which exists now, will be erased from our existence,' M had declaimed in a rare burst of almost Churchillian oratory.
"Seatbelt, James." He opened his eyes. Jay Autem Holy was shaking his shoulder. "We're coming in to land." Bond smiled back, sheepishly, as though he had really been deeply asleep.
"Landing? Where?" Perhaps in Geneva, at the airport, he could get away, raise the alarm.
"Berne, Switzerland. You remember we're flying into Switzerland?" Of course. They wouldn't do anything like trying to go into Geneva, which would be bristling with security.
Berne! Bond smiled inwardly. These people had the whole business tied up. Berne, cars, a swift drive over to the Lake of Geneva and the Goodyear airstrip. All formalities would be already dealt with under the auspices of the huge international company they appeared to represent.
He glanced at his watch. It was already four in the morning. As the aircraft banked on its final approach he saw out of the cabin window that the sky was beginning to brighten, a dark grey colour wash streaked with light.
No, he had to go all the way. Try to spike the plan from the inside as it got under way.
"Nice place, Berne,' he observed casually, and Holy nodded.
"We go on by car. It'll take us an hour - an hour and a half.
There'll be plenty of time. Our job does not start until eleven." They came in with engines throttled back, then there was a final short burst of power to lift them over the threshold, and hardly a bump as the wheels touched down, before the final fiery roar of reverse thrust.
As he had suspected, the transfer was swift and accomplished with the combined efficiency of Swiss bureaucracy and SPECTRE'S cunning.
The aircraft was parked well away from the main terminal. Two Audi Quattros and a police car were drawn up alongside.
From the window, Bond saw the transaction take place - the small pile of passports handed over, inspected and returned, with a salute.
There woul
d be no customs inspection, he thought. The Goodyear jet must have been running in and out of Berne and Geneva for a month or so now. They would have the formalities cut down to the fine art of mutual trust.
Then General Zwingli eased his bulk down the aisle first, giving Bond a friendly nod as he passed. They left the aircraft in single file, with Bond hemmed in neatly by the Arab boy and Simon. Nobody threatened him, but it was implicit in their looks that any false move would be countered. The police car, with its immigration officers on board, was already slowly disappearing back towards the terminal.
The Audis had Goodyear V.I.P. stickers on the windscreens and rear windows. Bond recognised both drivers, in their grey uniforms, as men he had seen in Erewhon.
Within minutes, he was sitting next to Holy in the rear of the second car as they swept away from the airport in the half light of dawn. The houses on Berne's outskirts still slept, while others appeared to be just waking lights coming on, green shutters open.
Always, in Switzerland, Bond thought, you knew you were in a small, rich country, for all the buildings looked as though they had been assembled in some sterile room from a plastic kit, complete with small details of greenery and flowers.
They took the most direct route - straight to Lausanne, then along the lake road, following the line of the toy-like railway. Holy was quiet for most of the journey, but Simon, sitting in the front passenger seat, occasionally turned back to make small talk.
"You know this part of the world, James? Fairytale country, isn't it?" Bond remembered, for no apparent reason, that the first time he had visited the Lake of Geneva was when he was sixteen. He had spent a week with friends in Montreux, had had a youthful holiday affair with a waitress from a lakeside cale, and had developed a taste for Campari-soda.
The Magic Carpet Between Lausanne and Morges the cars stopped at a lighted lakeside restaurant. Simon and the Arab boy, in turns, brought out coffee and rolls to the cars. The sheer normality of their actions grated on Bond's nerves, like a probe on a raw tooth. Half of his mind and body urged him to take drastic action now: the other more professional half told him to wait; bide his time and use the moment when it came.
"Where are we heading?" he asked Holy soon after the breakfast break.
"A few kilometres this side of Geneva." Holy remained relaxed and confident. "We turn off the lake road.
There's a small valley and an airstrip. The team from Erewhon will be waiting for us. Have you ever flown in an airship, James?"
"No."
"Then it will be a new experience for us both. I'm told it's rather fantastic." He peered from the windows. "And it looks as though we'll have a clear day for it. The view should be wonderful." They went through Nyon, the houses clustered together on the lake as though clinging to each other to save themselves from falling in. Soon afterwards, Geneva came into view at the western end of the lake, a misty blur of buildings with a toy steamer ploughing a lone furrow of spray, chugging across the water. It all looked as peaceful as ever.
They also met the first police checkpoint, the cars slowing almost to a standstill before the sharp-eyed uniformed men waved them on.
There was a second road block just before they turned inland. A car and two policemen on motorcycles started to flag them down, until they spotted the Goodyear stickers. They were waved on with smiles.
As Bond looked back, he saw one of the men talking into a radio.
As he had imagined, the police were assisting innocently in the events planned to take place over the lake in a few hours' time.
The great cleft in the mountains seemed to widen as they climbed away. The sun was up now, and you could clearly see tiny farmhouses on the slopes. Then suddenly the valley floor and the tiny landing strip appeared just below them, the grass a painted green, the control tower, hangar and one other building as neat and unreal as a film set. Out on the grass, two mountain rescue aircraft stood like stranded birds. At the far end of the field the sausage shape of the Goodyear airship Europa swung lazily, tethered to her low portable masthead.
Then the road dipped, the airfield disappeared, and they were twisting through the S-bends which would carry them to the final destination.
Before the two cars reached the valley floor and the airstrip two more police checkpoints were negotiated.
The Swiss police had certainly snapped into action.
London, Bond decided, would feel very satisfied, content that nothing untoward could now happen by the peaceful lakeside.
There were no less than three police cars at the airstrip entrance, which was little more than a metal gateway set into an eight-foot chain-link fence, encircling the entire area. In the distance, a police car patrolled the perimeter slowly and as thoroughly as only the Swiss perform their official duties.
As the Audis drew up, Bond saw two more faces which he recognised from Erewhon. This time, though, the men were dressed in smart suits and smiled broad, almost ingratiating smiles as the two-vehicle convoy came to a halt. They exchanged a few words with the senior policeman on the gate, and the cars were waved forward.
One man got into each car.
The man who entered Holy's car was a German, fair-haired, suspicious, and with features cut from a solid block of rough stone.
He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, and the smart suit bulged around the breast pocket. Bond did not like the look of him. He liked him even less when the talking started.
Holy confined himself to the most pertinent questions, and was given precise, military answers in an American accent.
Posing as the Goodyear head of PR, Rudi, the German, had taken the call from Bill Tanner, which he now described in detail, saying the man was certainly English, and also undoubtedly represented one of the major British security agencies. The police, he said, began to arrive within half an hour of his call.
Jay Autem then asked about times, and you could tell from His expression he had already worked out that the enquiries had begun while Bond was in the Foreign Office house off Northumberland Avenue.
"James, you didn't say anything indiscreet when you were with your friend Anthony Denton?" The two cars were heading not for the little office building but for the hangar, with its two slab-winged observation-rescue Pilatus aircraft sitting outside.
"Me?" Bond looked surprised and startled, as though he had not been paying attention to the conversation.
"Indiscreet? How? Why?" Holy looked at him, a shadow of concern crossing his face.
"You see, James, Tamil's people took over this airstrip, and the whole organisation here, in the early hours of yesterday morning.
Nobody suspected, there was no trouble. Not until last night, when you were closeted with the D.S.O.F.O obtaining the EPOC frequency for us.
Why, I ask myself; should the authorities begin to take an interest at that time of night?" Bond shrugged, indicating that he had no idea, and, in any case, it was nothing to do with him.
The cars came to a halt. "I do hope you've given us the correct frequency, James. If you haven't Well, I've already warned you of the consequences; consequences for the entire world, my friend "That's the current EPOC frequency. Have no doubt, Dr Holy,' he snapped back.
Holy winced at the sound of his real name, then nodded as he leaned forward to open the door.
Bond was left with the Arab boy, who watched him with alert bright eyes, a small Walther automatic clutched in his right hand. The safety catch, Bond noticed, was off.
Simon, Holy and the German, Rudi, were joined by Rahani and General Zwingli - a little procession walking spryly towards the hangar. Rahani's men were everywhere, Bond now saw, spread out, half concealed by what cover they could find, with a full armament of carbines and automatic weapons. There were even two guards on the small door inserted in one of the great sliding doors of the hangar.
The door was opened, and the party stepped inside.
Two minutes later, Simon came out, walking quickly to the car.
"Colonel Rahani want
s you inside." His manner was one of indifference, the attitude of a man who does not wish to become involved with anyone outside his own tight comradeship. Bond recognised the psychology. He had studied the whole subject of terrorist mentality and he knew they had come to some cut-off point.
Simon was not willing to have any kind of relationship with Bond now.
It could be, he thought, as they walked the few paces towards the hangar, that this really is the end. They've decided I've talked, and there can be no trust from now on. Curtain time - the fiction meeting the reality.
The little group of senior men stood just inside the door, and it was Tamil Rahani who greeted him."
"Ah, Commander Bond. We thought you should see this." He gestured towards the centre of the hangar.
About forty men sat close together on the floor, held in a tight knot by three tripod-mounted machine guns trained on them, each with a crew of four.
"These are the good men from Goodyear." He split the Good-year, as though trying a pun. "They will remain here until our mission is completed. They will be quickly dispatched - all of them - if one person makes an attempt to break out. They are being fed and looked after by the other team." He indicated four men placed between the guns. "It is uncomfortable for them. But if all goes well, they will be released unharmed. You will notice there is one lady." From the middle of the group, Cindy Chalmer gave Bond a wan smile, and Tamil Rahani lowered his voice.
"Between ourselves, Commander Bond, I think the delightful Miss Chalmer does not have much chance of surviving. But we want no bloodshed yet; not even your blood. You see, it was SPECTRE'S intention that you should be put with this group of prisoners once you'd fulfilled your mission. The representative from SPECTRE did not trust you from the start, and is not at all happy with you now.
However. . ." His lips drew back, not into a smile, but rather in a straight thin slash across his face.
"However, I think you can be of use in the airship. You can fly, can't you? You have a pilot's licence?" Bond nodded, adding that he had no experience of airships.