She shook her head. “I’m fine. How are you handling it?” She said it with a touch of sarcasm.
The inflection in her voice was just enough to make Bond’s blood rise. He hated it when relationships broke down into pettiness.
“Helena, sit down.” She sat in the leather chair across from his desk and looked at him as if he were a headmaster and she, the naughty girl, had received a summons.
“Now, look. We’ve had a fine time, you and I. We both agreed that it was not the best idea for us to continue this affair while we’re here in London. Am I right?”
“You’re right.”
“But you seem to be having a problem with it.”
She bit her lower lip to keep from saying something she might regret, then said instead, “James, I will be fine. Don’t worry about me. Now I must get back to work.”
“Wait,” he said. “Let’s leave us for a moment. I have to ask you about the leak.”
Helena regained her composure. At least she could display the facade of professionalism when she had to, even when she was suffering inside.
“They questioned me for two hours,” she said. “I had nothing to tell them, of course. There is no way that the information could have been leaked out of my office.”
Bond didn’t say anything.
“You believe me, don’t you?”
He did. “Helena, I trust you implicitly. It’s just bloody disconcerting that someone knew my movements in Belgium before I made them. Do you have any idea who could have done this?”
She shook her head. “I answered that question at least twenty times. James. No. Now, can I go back to work? I have to get out a report.”
He nodded, giving her permission to stand and leave the room.
Her manner was cold and abrupt. It was to be expected, Bond thought, considering the nature of their relationship now.
Why did his love affairs, whenever they became somewhat SERIOUS, always end up so messy? Salvaging them was always a problem, which is why he rarely remained friends with former lovers. It was a pattern that he had long ago resigned himself to, even THOUGH he would never grow accustomed to it. He had met few women who were able to distinguish the difference between sex and A relationship, or who could have one without the other. In his own perfect world, men would be completely happy going through life from partner to partner, loving their mates equally but not exclu-sively. Cynically, Bond liked to think that women invented the concept of relationships and marriage in an effort to exert control over their male counterparts.
She would get over it. It would take some time, and then perhaps they could renew their passion on another extended holiday away from England. In the meantime, though, Bond decided he must keep Helena Marksbury at arm’s length until things cooled down—or warmed up, as the case might be.
“Something’s up, James,” Moneypenny said as he stood beside her desk, waiting to be buzzed into M’s inner sanctum.
“News on Skin 17?”
“I think so. She’s been with the Minister of Defence most of the day and just got back.”
“That sounds interesting.”
The green light flashed above the door.
“In you go,” she said, giving Bond the warm smile he knew so well.
M was sitting in her black leather swivel armchair, studying images on the monitors behind her desk. Bill Tanner was standing next to her, pointing out some detail in a picture. If Bond wasn’t mistaken, they were photographs of Himalayan peaks.
Sit down, Double-O Seven,” M said without looking at him. Then, to Tanner, “How can we be sure there are bodies intact inside the fuselage? It looks to me as if it was burned badly.”
“Yes, ma’am, but as you can see from this shot”—Tanner pressed a button and zoomed in on what appeared to be the wreckage of an aircraft—”the entire fuselage is intact. The burn marks are back here, all over the tail end. The front is relatively damage free. The wings are gone, of course.”
“You don’t suppose anyone could have survived that crash?” she asked.
“Highly doubtful,” Tanner answered. “If anyone did, they would certainly be dead by now. The abrupt change in altitude from a pressurized cabin to twenty-six thousand feet above sea level would kill a man quite quickly. Not to mention the freezing temperatures and the fact that it was unlikely that any of the passengers were dressed for exposure of that kind.”
M swiveled her chair to face Bond. “Double-O Seven, you’re an experienced mountaineer, aren’t you?” she asked.
Not sure how to reply, Bond said, “Well, yes, I used to take great pleasure in the sport, but I haven’t done it in a while.”
“Haven’t you climbed Everest?”
“Yes, ma’am, and Elbrus, too. Most of my experience has been in the Alps and Austrian Tyrol. Why?”
With pen in hand she pointed to the image of the plane wreckage on the monitor. “Skin 17 is here, in this airplane, high on one of the Himalayas’ tallest peaks.”
Bond raised his eyebrows. “What?”
Tanner filled him in on what they had learned that morning from Station I. Lee Ming had boarded a sight-seeing flight that had apparently been hijacked. Its final destination was unknown, but the plane was tracked eastward, into a bad storm. The aircraft went down less than two thousand feet from the summit of Kangchenjunga, located in the northeast corner of Nepal on the border with Sikkim.
“We now have a very good excuse to go up there and find Mr. Lee’s body,” M said. “Because the travel agency that owned the plane is British, we have a compelling reason for the Nepalese government to give us a permit to climb the mountain. There were American and British citizens aboard the flight, and their families want to salvage the bodies and see what personal belongings can be found. More significantly, the plane was carrying an MP and an American senator and their wives.”
“That’s normally not done, ma’am,” Bond said. “Hundreds of people have died in climbing accidents over the years. Everest has claimed the lives of at least a hundred and fifty people, and their bodies have remained on the mountain to this day—no matter who they were. I’m sure there are many such corpses on Kangchenjunga.”
“I understand that, Double-O Seven, but we have to tell the Nepalese something reasonable. We can tell them that we want to perform a salvage operation for humanitarian reasons so that the victims loved ones can give their family members a proper burial. And there’S the matter with the government officials being aboard. What we’re really going to do is find that bloody pacemaker.”
Bond’s heart started to race. He knew what was coming, and he was already well aware that it would be a difficult and challenging assignment.
“The Ministry of Defence is organizing an expedition. They’re arranging with the government of Nepal for permission to climb the mountain, which I understand is sacred to the people there.”
“Kangchenjunga is a special case, ma’am,” Bond said. “It is indeed sacred, and as I understand it, people are allowed to climb it as long as they don’t summit. Many do anyway. I’ve always heard the mountain referred to as ‘Kangch.’ ”
“Whatever. As I was saying, the Ministry are organizing an expedition to climb the north face, as this is a route that has proven successful in the past, and it’s the best way to the plane. I think you should tag along and pick up that pacemaker for us.”
Bond thought for a moment before replying carefully “Ma’am, Kangchenjunga is the third tallest mountain in the world. What is it, Bill, twenty-eight thousand feet?”
Twenty-eight thousand two hundred and eight feet, to be exact,” Tanner said. “Or eight-thousand five hundred and ninety-eight meters.”
Bond continued. “Any peak over eight thousand meters is considered extremely formidable. Everest isn’t that much taller, and it’s a hell a lot easier. Not that Everest is a piece of cake, either. Kangchenjunga is one of the most difficult climbs anywhere.”