Once again James Bond disobeyed his superior’s orders and went straight to Li Xu Nan’s office building when he got to Kowloon that evening. The Dragon Head had assembled ten men, all outfitted with miscellaneous automatic weapons. They were ready to move at a moment’s notice.
Bond made contact with Captain Plante aboard the Peacock. Although Plante was perturbed that 007 was in Kowloon, he was willing to cooperate and do whatever he could to find Thackeray and the bomb. The Royal Hong Kong Police had been put on alert as well, and they were working double-time searching the Central District.
“Where could Thackeray place that bomb for maximum effect?” Bond asked Li.
“I have been thinking about that. I would suspect that it would be Central. That is where EurAsia’s headquarters is, and where all the important bank buildings and businesses are. It is the financial centre of Hong Kong. The police are already searching the area.”
“That’s what I thought, too. Somehow, though, I feel it’s wrong,” Bond said. “It’s too obvious.”
“Yes, I know what you mean.”
Something was nagging at Bond’s memory, and he knew that it was a clue to the bomb’s whereabouts.
“Think, Mr. Bond,” said Li. “Did Thackeray say anything about where he might put it? Did its shape or size indicate where it might be placed?”
Bond went over everything he could recall about his fateful meeting in Australia. Mostly he remembered an alcoholic madman with a childish lust for revenge.
“He’s also got Sunni,” Bond said. “He said that …”
And then he remembered. “My god,” he said. “Do you have a boat? It’s going to be in the harbour on a boat.”
“How do you know?”
“Thackeray said that Sunni would make a nice figurehead for the bomb. There was a sampan at the Kwai Chung warehouse, and I saw it again in Australia. They’re going to put the bomb inside the sampan and casually float it out into the harbour!”
Li nodded. “I have a boat. Let’s go!”
11:10 P.M.
Li’s Sealine Statesman 420 was a high quality British import equipped with twin 370-hp Volvo diesels and had a cruising speed of 27.7 knots and a top end of 33.5. A large yacht, the Statesman 420 was nevertheless sleek and sporty. She had sped out into the harbour at precisely 11:00, but quickly had to reduce her speed because of the congestion in the water. Bond and Li were on the upper deck, looking through binoculars at the hundreds of vessels crowding the relatively small body of water.
The Marine Police had given up directing the traffic on this particular night. Too many seagoing individuals wanted a good view of the fireworks display scheduled for midnight. A free-for-all was finally allowed, so long as everyone kept their speed down and didn’t crash into each other. Along with the numerous police and Royal Navy vessels, there were sampans, junks, tugboats, cargo ships, ferries, sailing boats, yachts, motorboats, and rowing boats—all jamming what was at that moment the world’s busiest harbour.
Bond was looking for a dark brown sampan with a red hood. Unfortunately, most sampans were dark brown. He prayed that the red hood would give it away.
There was no sign of the Taitai, and Bond wondered where she could possibly be. Keeping close contact with Captain Plante, Bond had made enquiries about the ship’s movements. Records showed that the Taitai had indeed left Singapore two days ago and was headed for Hong Kong, but no one had seen her since. Bond could only speculate that Thackeray was lying low, probably lurking near one of the outlying islands. The sampan was probably flown to Singapore in the same cargo seaplane that Thackeray and Sunni took from Perth. It made sense—cargo seaplanes had long been used to rendezvous with and smuggle drugs on to ocean-going vessels. The Taitai had sailed to the waters near Singapore, where the sampan was loaded on to the seaplane and then flown to Australia. The trip was made in reverse to get it back to Hong Kong. The sampan would probably be sent in by itself, piloted by an unsuspecting minion.
“Can’t we get this thing going any faster?” Bond snapped.
“I am sorry,” Li said. “You can see the harbour is crowded. This is as fast as we can go.”
“We’ll never make it across to the other side at this rate,” Bond said. He felt utterly helpless.
A call came in on the radio for Bond. It was Captain Plante.
“Uhm, Commander Bond?”
“Yes, Captain?”
“You say you’re looking for a sampan with a red roof?”
“Yes!”
“Well, there’s an odd thing over here by us. There’s a cargo ship—a British one, I think. Called the Glory. They have a sampan fitting that description tied to the side like a lifeboat.”
Captain Plante was calling from the Peacock, which was directly in the centre of the harbour, facing Central. Bond turned and scanned the area with his binoculars.
“Where’s the Glory in relation to you, Captain?” he asked.
“Due north, about a mile.”
Bond found the ship. The Glory looked exactly like the Taitai, except that it had red stripes painted across the hull. The Taitai had been entirely white.
“The bastard painted his ship,” Bond said. “He’s disguised the Taitai and renamed her. That’s it there!”
Li barked an order to the man at the helm of the Statesman and they turned towards the Glory/Taitai. They had about forty-five minutes to find the bomb and disarm it.
TWENTY-TWO
NO TEARS FOR HONG KONG
THE STATESMAN APPROACHED THE GLORY AND STOPPED THIRTY METRES away. The sampan was tied and hung over the starboard side of the ship like a lifeboat, ready to be lowered into the water. Bond wasn’t sure, but he thought he could see the outline of a figure inside the small boat. Was it Sunni?
The Peacock had pulled away from its position as well, and was heading towards the Glory. The Royal Navy ship’s movement must have alerted the crew of the Glory, for Bond and Li saw men appear on its deck. A tarpaulin covered a large object amidships. The men pulled off the tarpaulin to reveal a 76mm OTO Melara Gun. They began to swing it towards the Peacock.
“Captain Plante,” Bond said into the radio. “The Glory has a gun aiming at you. Take defensive action immediately. We’re preparing to assault the ship.”
Plante acknowledged the call and wished Bond good luck. He was going to radio the other ships for back-up. Unfortunately, they were all deployed evenly across the harbour. Due to the congestion, it might take half an hour for the ships to work their way through to the site. If Thackeray was going to be stopped before midnight, it would be up to the teams aboard the Statesman and the Peacock.
“Li, give the order to begin the assault,” Bond said.
Li shouted in Cantonese to his small band of dedicated gangsters-turned-patriots. He then gave an order to the man at the helm. The Statesman was brought as close as possible alongside the Glory. Then, three men aimed M-16 .233 semi-automatic gunlines and fired grappling hooks, attached to long ropes, at the deck of the big ship. The hooks stuck, and the men, dressed in black, immediately used harness and pulley systems to pull themselves over and board the enemy vessel.