‘What’s the matter, James? You’re not exactly bursting with enthusiasm. Don’t you want to get Stromberg?’
Bond pulled himself together. ‘Of course I do. I just want to ask you one favour. Before you destroy Atlantis I’d like the chance to get aboard by myself.’
Carter jerked his head heavenwards in a gesture of exasperation.
‘Hell, James! Are you mad? I told you my orders. “Destroy Atlantis with all possible speed.” That didn’t come from the Sweetbrush PTA.’
‘An hour.’ Bond’s voice was calm but it had a hard edge to
it. ‘If I’m not back within an hour you can send the whole hellish structure to the bottom.’
Carter’s reply veiled his concern for Bond. ‘You’re trying to get me court-martialled, James.’
Bond’s face did not lighten. The tone remained firm. There was no hint of supplication. ‘An hour. That’s all I need.’ Carter looked into the hard gun-metal eyes seared with red lines of pain and fatigue. ‘What is it, James? Stromberg or the girl?’ The tight, cruel line of Bond’s mouth divided like a trap being sprung. ‘Let’s say both.’
Bond never discovered the speed they made through the Straits of Gibraltar and past the Balearics but he estimated that it must be in excess of forty knots. He was, however, able to catch up on some important items of world news over the ship’s radio. A mysterious tidal wave had lashed the west coast of Ireland causing considerable damage but mercifully few deaths. A number of ships had been lost. A similar natural phenomenon in the area of the Windward Islands had savaged the east coast of Barbados and caused widespread damage in the islands of St Lucia, Martinque and Dominica. Both disturbances were said to be the results of seismic eruptions on the ocean bed and demonstrated that when it stirred itself, nature could reproduce a cataclysm of almost man-made proportions. Bond wondered drily whether informed scientific opinion would be able to link these eruptions with that which was shortly going to take place on the coast of north-east Sardinia. Amongst natural disasters of this magnitude, a report of the sinking of one of the world's largest and newest tankers, the Lepadus, was hardly given news space. Bond knew that the sight of the great iron coffin sliding beneath the sea would stay with him for ever. Despite the evil purpose for which it was built there was a grandeur about the concept and execution of the Lepadus that commanded respect. To see a mighty ship die was always sad, especially in a dense pall of black smoke and a sizzling flame-scarred sea.
The Straits of Bonifacio were entered at dawn and the Wayne, still under water, veered to starboard. Bond sat in Carter’s cabin wearing a neoprene wet-suit and checking his diving gear. The suit was a good fit. Tight enough to show the bulge of the Walther PPK in its oilskin bag against his left shoulder. Bond fitted the regulator to the neck of the scuba tank, tightened the wing nut that held it in place, and opened the air valve. He sucked a few breaths from the tank to make sure that it was feeding air and looked up to see Carter standing in the doorway.
‘I think we’re there. You’d better come up and take a look.’ Bond picked up the tank, flippers and mask and followed Carter to the control room. He gripped the handles of the periscope and looked towards the familiar snaggle-tooth outline of the rocky coast. Seen from a distance and the right angle, the jagged circular outline of the caldera was easily recognizable. Streaks of white surf showed at the entrance through the rocks. Bond shivered and turned the periscope to port. A small cove bit into the cliffs and there was a suspicion of white sand. A steep climb and you would be on the lip of the caldera. He relinquished the periscope. ‘That’s it. They’ve got an early warning device at the entrance to the harbour so I’m going to make for the cove alongside. Can you take me in any closer? There’s quite a current.’
Carter looked at Bond’s injured arm and shook his head. ‘If there was a medal for stupidity I’d pin it on you right away.* Bond started to lift the tank and Carter stepped forward and held it so that he could slip his arms through the straps. ‘Remember what I said. An hour after you leave this vessel, I’m going to attack. You’ll have to wait for the Italian Navy to take you off. I have strict orders not to surface. We don’t want any reports of fishermen seeing submarines around at the time of the eruption.’
Bond nodded and fastened the third strap round his waist. ‘Message received and understood, Captain. Where do you want me?’
Carter’s jaw tightened. ‘I’m going to flood one of the missile tubes amidships. You’ll be inside it. I’ll open the outer door and you swim out. Will you be able to get enough lift with that equipment?’
Bond wasn’t certain but he nodded.
Fifteen minutes later he stood hunched in the 21-inch firing tube reserved for a nuclear missile. It was an agonizingly tight fit and the feeling of claustrophobia it induced exceeded anything that Bond had known. His face was pressed against the smooth circular tube and his scuba tank scraped the wall behind him. It was dark and hot and he felt like a man in a strait jacket. When the water started to pour in he wanted to scream. Instead, he pulled his mask down, spat inside it, and with his elbows pressed against his chest, rubbed the saliva over the mask. He settled it on his face and drew up the regulator tube, fitting the mouthpiece into his mouth.
He took a couple of breaths and felt the water rising above his waist. This was the moment of sheer death-knowing terror. The moment that the many men who had drowned with the rats on the Lepadus must have known. Supposing he couldn’t move? Supposing he remained stuck in the tube and the regulator failed? The water passed over his face, less icy than the fear that surged with it. A stream of bubbles rushed up and he tilted his head to see the hatch beginning to open. Three fathoms above his head there was morning light glinting down through the water. Now, pause, fight panic, flex the knees as far as possible. Push - but not too hard I Don’t lose momentum against the side of the tube. Bond felt the scuba tank dragging against the metal and paddled wildly. For a couple of seconds he seemed locked, and then his stretching hands clawed against the top of the tube and he was able to pull himself from the chrysalis of death.
Like a basking whale the three hundred feet of nuclear submarine stretched away on either side. Bond patted the hull as one might an obedient dog and began paddling towards the surface to make a sighting.
It took him ten minutes to reach the cove and his arm was aching painfully as he raised his head behind the protection of an offshore rock. There was no one about. The merest hiss of surf on the virgin sand. Bond wanted to rest but he knew there was no time. He had to drive himself forward. He came in close to the caldera and let the swell lift him on to an apron of pumice-stone rock made slippery by the passage of the sea and a coating of weed that rose and fell like the fur of an animal. He pulled himself ashore and tugged off his flippers, watching small striped fish dart in and out with the passage of the swirling sea. The sun was still low but already adding some lustre to the sinister grey of the wall that surrounded Stromberg's harbour.
Bond looked about him carefully and began to make his way up the loose shale of volcanic rock that ran away beneath his feet like whispers in church. It was like climbing up a pile of coke. He reached the lip and laid himself down with the mask and flippers beside him. He was breathing hard and his shoulder throbbed. Below him was a narrow defile plunging down into the dark waters of the caldera. Two hundred yards away, the lab rose like a mixture of oil-rig and space- probc launching-pad. There was no sign of life. The helideck was empty. The Riva was not moored alongside.