Bond turned his eyes towards the shore. No vessels were moored against the ramp. The shutters on the buildings were closed. To all intents and purposes, Stromberg had abandoned his headquarters. But ... Bond tried to analyse his presentiment rationally. Something told him that the place still contained life. He waited another minute, his keen eyes searching all corners of the caldera, and then crawled over the ridge and lowered himself into the defile. Now he was in shadow and the neoprene suit chafed uncomfortably. He picked his way down, scraping knuckles and bare feet as he tried to use every inch of protection that the crevasse offered. Within five minutes he was at the water’s edge. He looked at his battered Rolex Perpetual; nearly half an hour had elapsed since he left the Wayne.
Quickly sluicing his mask in water, he pulled it over his head and began to don his flippers. Within seconds, he was sliding beneath the surface. To his irritation, he found that there was water inside the mask so he let his feet sink and tilted his head back until he was looking up through the murky water. He pressed a hand against the faceplate and expelled air through his nose until the mask was clear. Now he drove forward, paddling hard with his feet, his arms straggling back along the length of his body. The only sound was of his breathing - a deep, hollow noise when he breathed in, a fluted thumping of bubbles as he exhaled. The sea was murky, close- textured, impenetrable to the eye. With every stroke of his legs, the tension mounted. Was some sonar device plotting his course through the water? Would a depth-charge soon drift lazily down to rip the flesh from his bones? He pressed on, seeking to cure fear with movement. The journey seemed endless. Had he by chance veered to one side of his target? No, there it was in front of him., the inverted dome vaguely discernible through the murk.
He looked behind warily but there was nothing save a trail of bubbles. Conscious that these might be seen if he was too near the surface, he dived beneath the hull before making his way upwards, brushing against the barnacle-encrusted side. The light grew in intensity and shoals of small fish veered sharply to one side like shimmering iron filings caught in the refraction of the sun. His head broke the surface and he pushed his mask back and spat out the mouthpiece so that he could fill his lungs with sweet gulps of fresh air. There was no sound except that of water nudging the landing stage. He paddled towards it and pulled himself aboard, wincing at the pain in his arm. He could feel the escaping blood making the inside of the neoprene suit slippery.
Unzipping the jerkin, he took out his Walther PPK. He then shed his diving gear, and without its cumbersome weight immediately felt better. He took several deep breaths and rose unsteadily to his feet. His respite on the Wayne had not been sufficient convalescence for the nonstop action of the last few days. He was drawing on his last resources of energy.
Moving his gear to the side of the pontoon, Bond began to ascend the stairway, pistol in hand. The catwalks and gantries which had once been lined with hard-eyed guards were now eerily empty. He came to the first stage and faced the lift. Some internal voice spoke up urgently and told him not to use it. He moved to port and found a metal stairway curving up round one of the four tubular columns supporting the structure. He followed it warily and came to a point where two enclosed galleries parted at right angles. One was in shadow and the other half-exposed to the rising sun. The sea murmured thirty feet below but there was a closer source of noise. From somewhere along the gallery that lay in shadow came the sound of voices.
Bond tensed and tried to pump new life into the pain- numbed fingers that were gripping the Walther. It was impossible to hear what the voices were saying but they sounded agitated and were talking over each other as if trying to press home an argument. Bond moved forward from the stairway and began to creep along the gallery. Somewhere above his head was a persistent creaking noise like a shutter stirring in the breeze. He passed one door and could tell that the voices were coming from the next room. One of them was speaking urgent Italian. He ducked below a porthole and saw that the heavy metal door was ajar. Two steps and he threw his shoulder against it and burst inside.
The room was empty. Empty save for two banks of television screens on opposite walls. They were all showing different pictures and as Bond watched he realized that they were commercial television programmes beamed from around the world. A quiz game from Tokyo, a situation comedy from New York, a news bulletin from Rome. Bond pondered and arrived at the truth. This is where Stromberg must have waited to heard news of the end of the world. Horrified announcements and then, one by one, the screens going blank, the babble of voices dying away until there was complete and utter silence. The silence of the grave.
Bond shivered and was turning to leave the room when a voice stopped him dead in his tracks.
‘Good day, Commander Bond. I have been expecting you.’
Exit Sigmund Stromberg - Again
The voice was Strombcrg’s. It came, like the picture of him sitting in his vast armchair, from each of the screens in the room. The other images had been wiped away into oblivion. He helped himself from a bowl of walnuts, cracking one with slow, intense care.
Bond glanced at his watch. Less than fifteen minutes to Carter’s deadline. There seemed little alternative but to play along with Stromberg. The thin, disembodied voice continued.
‘I have been watching you for some time. Ever since you crawled from the sea, in fact.’ The voice became introspective. ‘An appropriate entrance in the circumstances. Did it occur to you, Commander Bond? Were you intending to rub salt in my wounds by enacting the role of some primordial creature bridging the gap between fish and man? I imagine not. Such foresight docs not seem to be in your nature.’
‘I didn’t come here for character analysis.’ Bond’s voice was cutting. ‘Where's Major Amasova?’
Stromberg spread his hands wide. ‘Clearly not with me. Come, there are matters which I wish to discuss with you. She can be one of them. I am in Room 4c. Do not be alarmed. I am not armed.’ He slowly stretched out a hand towards a console. The screens went blank.
Stromberg dropped the nutcrackers into the bowl and flicked a switch on the console. The two halves of the Romney portrait separated and revealed the screen of the TV monitor. Stromberg adjusted picture control and watched the evil grace of the great white shark careen through the water. A slight quickening of the pulse was revealed in the deepening red glow of his pupils. The socket mouth began to tremble in anticipation. The camera was covering the glass-fronted cavity
of the death-trap of Room 4c and Stromberg settled back in his chair and tightened his hands over the rounded arm-ends, He wanted to hear Bond scream as the girl had screamed. He wanted to hear the water rushing in, the gasps, the groans, the sounds of scrabbling, gasping, choking, mad-eyed panic. He wanted to see Bond torn apart while he was still alive. He wanted to watch until the images on the screen were obliterated by a thick, crimson curtain.
‘Room 4c sounded a little pedestrian. I preferred to talk to you face to face.’
Stromberg spun round and found himself looking into the mean, glinting barrel of Bond’s Walther PPK. Bond emerged from the shadows. ‘Now, let’s return to my earlier question. Where’s Anya?’
Stromberg raised a non-existent eyebrow. ‘Anya? Last time it was Major Amasova. Do I detect the signs of a developing and tender friendship?’
Bond moved the Walther six inches closer to Stromberg’s heart. ‘We don’t have time for small talk, Stromberg. In less than ten minutes, this place is going to be sunk by torpedo fire.'
Stromberg spread his arms wide. ‘That is of no consequence, Commander Bond. I have already decided to die. My main interest is in ensuring that you die with me. I would have preferred that the shark accounted for you, but that is a question of personal whim.’ Stromberg waved an arm towards the walls. ‘If you could see outside, you would be able to observe that we are sinking. Even a person of your limited intelligence and imagination must have wondered why I should place my laboratory here, Commander Bond. It is because it is a bathysphere, and because the caldera is practically bottomless. When the volcano exploded it gouged a socket descending over a mile into the earth. This is where I would have lain whilst the nuclear turbulence passed far overhead. Snug as a foetus in a womb. A womb which, but for you, would have given birth to a new and immeasurably better world!’ Stromberg’s voice ascended to a shriek. ‘But you destroyed that, and I will destroy you! As soon as you came aboard, I instigated the process which put this craft into a dive from which she will not recover. Slowly but inevitably we will descend until the