“A very handy little gadget to take on a picnic,’ Bond had replied.
Q had given him the ghost of a smile. “I had it tested on the vaults below the Bank of England,’ he said. “The people there didn’t like it one bit.” By the time Bond’s memory took in the conversation, the box gave a final little beep and the door clicked open.
They were on a high, suspended walkway, looking down on what seemed to be a huge manufacturing plant. On the far side a row of some six massive stainless steel vats stood in line, linked together by slim metal tubing. This line of vats ended in a mass of tubes and pumps which went into a much larger container like some kind of pressure cooker. More tubes and pumps disappeared through the wall area to their right. By this time, Bond was completely disoriented. He had no idea of his position in relation to the ground above.
To the left, at the end of these gigantic containers was another electronic door, while directly underneath them Bond could make out a wide conveyor belt, running the length of the floor and rolling through a fringed rubber flap.
“What’s through there?” Bond indicated the electronic door.
“The rest of the laboratories, I should think.” Trevelyan gave another chuckle. “I just went missing into the connecting passages when I got here. The map M gave us was pretty accurate, so I hid up where you found me. I played at being a kind of phantom of the labs so to speak. The music of the night down here isn’t really my thing though.” Bond indicated the big red signs, decorated with skulls and crossed bones which hung everywhere. In Russian they said: “DANGER.
HIGHLY INFLAMMABLE.”
“And those?” he asked.
“They’re scouring out all the equipment. I gathered, from what I heard on that quite disgusting underground train ride, that this is all new stuff. Has to be absolutely clean before they start processing the new horror.”
“Smoking in here could seriously damage your health then?’ “Definitely, and the second-hand smoke would kill very quickly indeed.’ “Let’s get the place rigged up. Bond headed towards the steps that led down onto the deadly factory’s floor and clamped the electronic device onto the door at the end.
Then he began emptying his pouches and pockets of the neatly packaged timers and charges which he had carried in with him.
Together they set about placing the explosives behind the vats and on the connecting tubing.
“I’ll do the last one,’ he called to Trevelyan. “If I set it for three minutes or so that should give us plenty of time to get out. The rest’ll go up by spontaneous combustion.
The device on the door gave its final little beep, signifying that it had unlocked the electronic password, and as it did so a piercing, shrieking warning klaxon went off.
Bond swore. “Get behind this stuff, Alec. No time to…” He was cut off by the sound of a voice, magnified by an electric loud hailer “This is Colonel Ourumov, the disembodied voice grated. “You are surrounded and there is no way you can escape. Just drop any weapons and come out with your hands on your heads. Now!”
“No way,’ Bond muttered, continuing down the line of steel vats that towered above him. Aloud he called, “Alec, put that bit of high-tech gadgetry into reverse. Just hit the switch on the left side.” He had almost reached the final high pressure cooker device. “Alec?” He ducked down and peered around the corner of the drum.
His old friend 006, Alec Trevelyan, knelt on the floor. Behind him, with the muzzle of a pistol against Trevelyan’s cheek, stood a tall, sinister Soviet officer wearing the shoulder boards of a colonel.
He was backed by half-a-dozen heavily armed troops, one of whom loosed off a round in Bond’s direction.
“Fool. Stop that,’ yelled Ourumov. “If you hit any of the hardware, you’ll blow us all to hell and gone.
Bond drew back, and looked at the timer he was about to insert into the final charge, the one that would bring about a chain reaction and blow most of the place to pieces. He glanced across to the other side of the factory floor towards the conveyor belt. The start button was set into a metal post near the fringed rubber flap.
“I give you a count of ten,’ Ourumov shouted. “If you’re not out by then, I will shoot your coMr.ade.”
“And set off an inferno?” Bond set the timer for one minute and plugged it into the explosive charge.
Then he removed a grenade from the belt pouch that contained four of these lethal little bombs.
“One Two…” Ourumov began counting.
Bond pulled the pin from the grenade, holding down the safety lever.
“Three… Four..
Bond stepped from behind the massive steel pressure cooker. His arms were wide apart, the grenade in his left hand, pistol in the right.
“Five..
at was pretty near the truth. Apart from the grenade, the main charge would blow in about thirty seconds.
“You think I’m not afraid to die for my country?” Ourumov snapped.
Then he pulled the trigger and Bond saw his old friend topple over.
Without a second thought he dropped the grenade, leaped to his right onto the conveyor belt, his free hand smacking the start button on the metal upright.
He heard Ourumov yell at his men to hold their fire, and thought he saw him backing away, dragging Trevelyan’s body with him.
The conveyor belt started to move with a jerk and, now that he was away from the vats and cylinders filled with inflammable cleaning fluids, the Russian colonel fired two shots. The bullets smacked into the woodwork above the rubber skirt just as the belt carried Bond out of the processing room, angling upwards and moving fast
The grenade exploded with an ear shattering blast He thought he could hear screams, then, suddenly, he found himself being deposited onto a loading bay, outside the facility, only some fifty yards from the runway where the little Fiesler Storch was slowly taxiing, its tail towards him, ready to make the ninety-degree turn onto the threshold for take off.
The first explosion came from deep within the earth behind him, almost throwing him forward onto the unfriendly ground. Nobody was going to get out of the complex alive, that was a sure bet, so he began to run, heading towards the aircraft.
With bursting lungs, Bond reached it just as it started to turn and begin rolling. Behind him another explosion.
This time a blossom of flame, smoke and debris seemed to erupt from the ground. He leaped forward, catching the wing strut on the right hand side of the Storch. The pilot, concentrating on keeping the aircraft straight as it began to gather speed, glanced towards him and retarded the power, trying to abort the take off, as Bond reached out to the handle on the cockpit door.
The pilot, hitting the brakes to slow the plane, banged the rudder to the left, making the Storch yaw violently in an attempt to throw Bond from the wing strut, but when that did not work, he opened the door on his side and rolled from the cockpit, pushing the throttle to full power as he went.
With a push, Bond catapulted himself from the strut to the right hand seat, then leaned over to ease back on the throttle as he pulled himself across to get behind the controls.
The aircraft was turning in a wide circle, out of control, bumping along the rough ground, lurching and dipping first one wing and then the other, leaving Bond in no doubt that it would cartwheel any second.
He snatched back on the throttle, pressed the rudder pedals to gain control and, as another explosion fountained behind him, he swung the nose onto the runway, fishtailing violently until the Storch pointed down the centre line.