The charm wasn’t working. She pointed to the lift again. ‘That way. They’re waiting.’
He walked toward the elevator, passing a board filled with radioactivity badges.
‘Doctor?’ she called.
Bond turned back to her.
‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’
He realised that he’d made a mistake. It was so basic that he could tell she was suspicious now. He took one of the badges from the board.
‘Right. Of course. Thank you,’ he said. ‘It was a long flight/
He continued toward the lift, when she called after him, in Russian, ‘Your English is very good for a Russian.’
Bond replied, in Russian, ‘I studied at Oxford.’
Christmas watched him disappear into the building and once again wiped the sweat from her brow. Hmmm, she thought. This one was different! Dark and handsome, for a change, if a little screwy'. Something wasn’t right, though . . .
She took another drink of water, then went about her
business.
The lift took Bond down into the ground past three levels. When the doors opened, he found himself completely alone and facing a long, dark, circular corridor. It was dead quiet.
He walked forward until he could hear the sound of machinery and an ominous humming. There was a larger, illuminated room up ahead.
It was a spherical test chamber, surrounded by blast openings designed to channel the fury of a nuclear test to measuring equipment. In the very centre of the chamber was a pit. He was standing in one of several similar tunnels that radiated from the chamber. Bond entered the eerie place, slowly stepped to the middle and looked over into the hole. Four men were working on a device on top of a cart. The head had been removed and much of its guts were exposed. Nevertheless, Bond knew that it was an atomic bomb.
Renard’s voice came from behind. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’
09 - Fire in the Hole
At the sound of Renards voice, Bond whipped out the Walther. The whine of a lift began and Bond saw Renard, dressed in Russian Army fatigues, lowering himself on a platform. Bond stole through the shadows to meet the terrorist, keeping his head down as Renard descended. As Renard stepped off the lift, Bond came face to face with him and smiled. The gun was pointing at Renard’s chcst.
‘Mister Bond,’ he said, obviously surprised.
‘Expecting Davidov perhaps?’ Bond asked. ‘He caught a bullet instead of the plane.’ Bond yanked him away from the lift and shoved him against a wall, out of sight. ‘Keep your mouth shut. Don’t move.’
Renard all but laughed. ‘You can’t kill me, Mister Bond,’ he said. ‘I'm already dead.’
‘Not dead enough for me.’
Finally confronting the man who was responsible for murdering Sir Robert King, 0012 and countless others . . . as well as kidnapping and raping Elektra King . . . Bond had to control himself to keep from blowing Renard’s brains out then and there. It would have been a pleasure. Unfortunately, he needed a bit more time, during which the terrorist might reveal a little of the scheme he had concocted. Such people always did.
Renard had shrugged away his surprise and now appeared to be fully confident. He looked at Bond with a twinkle in his good eye. The other one stared straight ahead, unblinking, cold and lifeless. A smile played on half of Renard’s face, but the other comer of his mouth turned down in a grimace. The shiny red lump at his temple only added to the man’s bizarre appearance.
You could show a little gratitude. I did spare you life in the banker’s office.' Renard was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Oh! But that’s nght . . . ! I couldn’t kill you. You were working for me! I needed you to deliver the money. To kill King. Thank you for that. Well done. And now you’ve brought me the plane. It seems that I can always count on MI6.’
Bond ignored the taunt. ‘What’s your plan with that
bomb?’
Renard seemed totally fearless. ‘You first. Or could it be you don’t have a plan?’
Unfortunately, he had spoken an uncomfortable truth. Bond needed to buy time in order to work out what to do.
‘That bomb won’t leave this room,’ he said.
‘Neither will you,’ Renard said, chuckling.
Bond risked a glance at the pit to see what the workers were doing with the bomb.
‘How sad,’ Renard continued. To be threatened by a man who can’t grasp what he’s caught up in. You haven’t a clue, have you?’
‘Revenge isn’t hard to fathom from a man who believes in nothing.’
Renard laughed. ‘And what do you believe in? Preservation of capital? You ’re nothing but a dim-witted bouncer at a fancy English club run by your betters. Too busy chasing the member;’ daughters to do your job. Shoot me. I welcome it. The men down there will hear the shot. They will kill you and get away with the bomb.’
‘The fire-fight will bring down half those troops from the surface.’
‘Perhaps. But when a certain phone call isn’t received in twenty minutes. . .’ He said into Bond’s face, ‘Go ahead. Pull the trigger, and you’ll kill Elektra.’
‘You’re bluffing.’
‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Renard said. ‘I think you’ve fallen for her. I can see it on your face. Well, my friend, you should have had her before. When she was innocent. Before she was such a whore in bed.’
Bond’s eyes flared in fury. He shoved Renard against the wall again and pressed the gun into his temple.
‘How does it feel’ Renard continued, knowing he had hit a nerve. ‘To know I broke her in for you?’
Furious, Bond struck Renard across the temple with the pistol. The terrorist dropped to his knees. He touched his head, then looked curiously at the blood on his fingers. He felt no pain at all.
Bond screwed on the silencer. ‘I usually hate killing an unarmed man. Cold-blooded murder is a filthy business. But in your case, I feel nothing. Just like you.’ He held the gun down, aiming at Renard’s head.
‘A man tires of being executed,’ Renard said. ‘But then again, there is no point in living if you can’t . . . feel alive.’
Bond was about to squeeze the trigger when the sound of running footsteps interrupted him.
‘Drop the gun,’ Colonel Akakievich commanded. Bond froze. He turned to see the colonel with two armed soldiers and Doctor Christmas Jones.
‘Keep away, colonel,’ Bond said. The soldiers trained their guns on Bond.
‘He’s an imposter,’ Christmas said. She held up a printout. ‘Doctor Arkov is sixty-three years old.’
‘Here’s your imposter,’ Bond said, indicating Renard.
‘Along with the men on the plane outside. They're stealing your bomb, colonel.’
Christmas, surprised by the change in Bond’s accent, listened, but Akakievich cocked his rifle.
‘I said drop it,’ the colonel ordered.
He clearly meant it. Bond delayed another second . . . but had no choice. He pulled the magazine from his gun and tossed it down. At that moment, a whirring sound filled the room as machinery in the pit came to life. The cone-shaped bomb, enclosed in a carrying cage, rose into view as Renard’s men quickly manipulated a robot arm to place the extremely heavy device on a wheeled cart. Then they attached the cage to an overhead track with chains so that it could be pushed through the tunnel more easily.
‘Well done,’ Renard said to Christmas. ‘He would have killed us all.’ Then, to Akakievich, ‘I suppose you were the one who allowed him down?’
The colonel looked suitably embarrassed.
So, Bond thought, Renard and the Russian colonel were in this together. But what about the girl? Was she a part of their cabal? From the confused look on her face, Bond guessed not. She was being used, too The doctor was staring at him now, wondering if she had just made a huge mistake.
Bond watched as one of the men referred to a Russian document just like the one he had seen in M’s office and then removed a thin metal rectangular object from inside the bomb. It was the size of a credit card. The man slipped it into his shirt pocket.