The automatic lock-pick from Q Branch came in handy on the heavy door. With a touch of a button, the device sent sound waves into the lock: there was a ‘click’ and the door opened. Bond stepped inside and shut the door, locking it behind him. Despite having two windows, the office was quite dark, so he held a pen light in his mouth while he searched through desk drawers and filing cabinets. None of it was of any interest - mostly papers, a few pistol magazines, office supplies . . .
He was about to examine a holdall sitting on the floor under the desk when a car’s headlamps shone through the front of the little building. The entire room was bathed in light through the window, but Bond stepped to the side and hid in the shadows. He looked out and saw a Land Rover with the now-familiar Russian Atomic Energy Department
symbols on the side. Sasha Davidov got out of the driver’s seat and looked around furtively. Bond noticed that Davidov’s hand was bandaged and that he was carrying a briefcase.
Davidov moved out of the line of sight. Bond had to move fast. Keys clattered against the lock, and in a moment the door opened.
Davidov stepped inside and turned on the lights. The office was empty, but a breeze was blowing in through an open window. Not suspecting a thing, the Russian slammed the window shut and locked it.
Outside, Bond quietly got up from the cool, dark ground beneath the window, hid behind the Land Rover and peered into the now-illuminated office window. He watched as Davidov removed something from the briefcase and sat at his desk. He took a tool from a drawer and intently worked on whatever the object was in his hands.
Bond moved to the back of the vehicle and opened the hatch. There was an envelope full of papers next to a tarpaulin chat covered something bulky. Bond pulled it back and got a mild shock. It was a corpse, an older man, with a bullet hole in his head. A sudden flash of light from the security annexe diverted Bond’s attention from the truck. Looking at the window again, he saw that Davidov was holding a Polaroid camera at arm’s length and taking a picture of himself.
Considering this, Bond turned again to the dead body in the Land Rover. The corpse was dressed in overalls with the Russian logo plastered on the sleeve. Bond noted that the shirt pocket was tom, probably where an ID card had been.
A torch beam swerved across the road. One of the patrolling guards was approaching. Bond jumped inside the Land Rover and quietly pulled the hatch down.
Davidov drove the Land Rover to an airfield hidden in the woods approximately eight miles away. He was nervous as hell. Renard had scared him badly, he admitted to himself.
And poor Arkov . . . All he had done was to suggest th.it the mission be called off. He would have to be extra careful or he. too, would end up with a bullet in the head. And not one like Renard’s.
At least Arkov had been successful in obtaining the Antonov AN-12 Cub, a Russian military transport plane, which sat on the well-lit runway. Men in overalls surrounded the aircraft, some on top of scaffolding. They were busy plastering Russian Atomic Energy decals on the fuselage and tail. A searchlight swept the airfield, looking for anything that shouldn’t be there.
Davidov drove to the small wooden shed that served as the airfield’s office. He backed up to a debris skip next to the building and parked. He got out and peered through the strand of trees that separated the shed from the runway. The plane was almost ready. He had better get prepared.
His boots crunched on the tarmac as he moved around the Land Rover and opened the rear hatch. Now for the disgusting part . . .
He pushed aside the tarp and grabbed hold of the body.
‘Up we go —’ Davidov said.
The corpse’s head turned and smiled. Davidov gasped.
James Bond swung a back-hand at Davidov, but it was only a glancing blow. Davidov reeled backwards and pulled a gun from his coat; Bond was faster. A single shot from 007’s silenced Walther cut the air with a ‘pffft’ and sent Davidov to the ground. Bond climbed out of the hatch, glanced through the trees at the plane, then crouched beside the dead Head of Security. Sure enough, the dead man’s ID card was clipped to his jacket. Davidov’s freshly-taken Polaroid was crudely pasted on top of what was assuredly the dead man’s face. His name was Arkov . . .
Bond pulled off the card and pocketed it, then scanned the area for a safe place to hide the body. The debris skip . . .
Bond leaned in to pick up the corpse when Davidov’s cell phone on his belt rang. Bond froze. It rang a second time. If Davidov didn’t answer . . .
Bond picked it up and spoke Russian. ‘Yes?’
A low voice at the other end said, ‘1-5-8-9-2. Copy?’ ‘Yes.’ Was it Renard?
‘Out.’ The line went dead. Bond clipped the phone to his own belt, then heaved Davidov’s body over his shoulder. A beam of light played along the trees between the runway and the Land Rover. Someone was coming!
Bond threw the corpse into the skip just as a large Russian man in overalls emerged from the woods. ‘Let’s go!’ he said. ‘It’s getting late!’
When the man saw Bond’s face and didn’t see another man with him, he registered surprise. ‘What happened to Davidov?’ he asked, ready to pull a gun. ‘I was told to expect him, too.’
‘He was up to his eyes in work,’ Bond said in Russian. ‘He told me to go on alone.’
The man hesitated, then relaxed and shrugged. ‘Got your stuff? Let’s go.’
Bond moved to the Land Rover and looked in the back. What should he take? The holdall he had seen earlier in the office was there, along with the envelope and Davidov’s briefcase.
‘Well?’ the man asked.
Bond grabbed the holdall and the envelope, which he thrust into his inside jacket pocket, and followed the man to the runway. The plane’s engine had fired up and there was a sense of urgency among the men.
‘I’m Truhkin,’ the man said. ‘You must be Arkov.’
Bond grunted affirmatively. The workers had finished with the plane. It now looked as if it belonged to the Russian agency. The Russian pilot approached Bond anxiously. ‘You’re late!’ he shouted. ‘You got a squawk?’
Bond’s eyes narrowed in confusion.
‘A squawk! The transponder codes! If we’re not squawking the right code, they’ll shoot us down!’
Bond hesitated, then said, ‘1-5-8-9-2?’
The pilot nodded, then looked him up and down. His brow creased when he saw Bond’s formal shoes. He glared at Bond with intimidation. ‘And the rest? Did you bring the grease?’
Bond didn’t have a clue. The pilot stared, expectantly. With no choice but to wing it, Bond opened the holdall. He reached inside and, to his relief, found a box of Adidas trainers.
The pilot beamed when Bond revealed them. ‘Excellent!’
The Antonov Cub flew at 482 miles per hour toward the rising sun, then turned north, crossing the Caspian Sea into west-central Asia. The pilot, in his overalls and new Adidas, whistled happily in the cockpit.
Bond sat in the rear between heavily secured cargo pallets. Everything was marked in Russian characters, which Bond easily translated as warnings: DANGER - RADIOACTIVE. There was an empty berth on one side of the aircraft, large enough for an automobile. Truhkin had expressly forbidden him to place anything there.
Whatever Renard was planning, Bond had stumbled on it. He thought about Elektra, and wondered if she would be worried about him. There had been few occasions during his career in which Bond felt nervous about going under cover. This was definitely one of them. He just hoped that he could improvise his role well enough to find out what this was all about and then get out alive.