Bond Movies 03 - Licence to Kill (26 page)

Later, he swore that he actually heard the thing pass underneath the cab and the tanker, but in his heart he knew this might be an exaggeration, and that he only thought he heard it. It mattered little because that was what happened. For some obscure reason – the Pentagon never would provide the full facts – these hand-held missiles had no target-lock, nor were they heat-seeking. The big dark-shaped projectile just followed the track on which Perez had set it as he squeezed the trigger. It shot under the cab and tank, scoring the road in its fiery wake, and hit the following tanker head on.

Bond
did
feel the heat in his cab. There was no doubt about that. Behind him the other tanker simply turned into molten metal and a great fireball from the explosives and the cocaine-spiked gasoline. Even Pam’s crop duster was lifted on the thermal produced by the explosion.

For Bond it did not end there, he was desperately trying to control his rig, which still travelled, tilted to one side. The jeep lay in his path and he gave the wheel a slight touch, accompanied by a short jab at the brakes. Perez leapt clear and the other three men flung themselves to one side. With a merciless grinding sound the entire tanker rig righted itself – on top of the jeep.

It had been slowed to almost a crawl, which gave Perez and the other three their last opportunity. Uzis performed a choral chattering requiem and Bond felt the bullets hitting the metal, then three of the tanker’s tyres. They blew one after another, the tanker itself going out of control.

The rig swung violently across the road, swerving first one way and then the next. To Bond it was like being on some demoniac roller-coaster ride. The road tilted and the tyres squealed, and his stomach turned over. Maybe it was reaction following the missile shot. Bond knew he would have to stop. This hunk of metal just would not go on with three of the tanker’s tyres blown out. Any moment it would jack-knife, and with the road twisting and turning, beginning a downward sweep, he just could not hold it.

Bond braked, glancing in the mirror to see the four men begin moving as though to chase after him. There was one chance in a million: try to blow this tanker in their faces. He braked again and drew the rig on to the side of the road, where the verge ended in a steep drop.

His hand was on the door lever when he saw something else in the long mirror. Way behind the men was the silhouette of the crop duster, edging down, lower and lower, like a fighter plane about to machine gun a road – which, in a manner, Pam was about to do.

As the crop duster came in over the group’s heads, so she fired off another canister of chemical spray, dumping what must have been a nauseating cloud on the entire group. All four dropped their weapons, and went down, clutching their faces and rolling around in pain as though they had received a truck-load of Mace full on the face.

Silently, Bond thanked her for good common sense. He was out of the cab by now, groping underneath and uncoupling the tanker. He went to the edge of the road and looked down. Below him the road corkscrewed in a series of S-bends as it would down the far side of the mountains.

The other tankers would only be a short distance in front of him, in fact he could see the lead rig already approaching the road below. He ran back to the cab, turning on the engine, slammed the cab into reverse and started to back up, gently pushing the tanker towards the edge of the cliff, which was the road’s verge. One final touch on the accelerator and he heard the grind and crunch as the tanker went over. Banging the cab into neutral and cutting the engine, Bond was out and looking over the edge again.

Below he saw the first two tankers pass harmlessly, but his tank was falling, hitting an outcrop of rock, turning like a rogue satellite coming out of orbit, before plummeting down, smack on to the third tanker in line.

The reaction was even worse than the missile hit. The two big cylinders, full of gasoline made a spectacular fireball which shot outwards and upwards, so high that Bond had to step back to avoid being singed.

‘Three down,’ he said. ‘Two to go.’ He ran back to the cab and went screaming off in pursuit of the last two tankers and the revenge, which he now knew he would achieve.

Below, on the flaming road, it looked like a battlefield. Sanchez’s car had pulled up just in time and he was still feeling a little unsteady at the near miss. Beyond the fire he could see the first two tankers had stopped as though awaiting instructions.

‘Okay. We’ll ride in the other two. Have to go around this.’ Sanchez was taut with frustration and something he had never felt before, so could not recognise – fear.

Truman-Lodge had a tight hold on the briefcase, and Sanchez, holding the Uzi, ordered the chauffeur to get the three remaining missiles from the boot. As the man went to carry out the order, so Truman-Lodge gave an officious grunt. ‘Well, you’ve certainly messed this up, Franz. Another eighty-million write-off.’

In his current humour, it was the last straw. Sanchez turned on his Wall Street wizard. His eyes turned into tiny slits filled with Lapis Lazuli. ‘Then I’d best start cutting down on overheads,’ he said. He only pulled the trigger twice to cut away the best part of Truman-Lodge’s chest.

The driver acted as though nothing had happened, for he was a man who had seen much worse than this, having fought for one side or another in all the trouble spots of Central America. ‘Got the missiles, boss.’

Sanchez walked over to the body of Truman-Lodge and prised the briefcase from his hand. He noticed that the young man hung on to it even in death. When he dragged it clear, Sanchez wiped the blood off with some earth, muttering something about this having been an expensive case – oxblood Gucci.

He signalled to the driver and they skirted the fire and walked quickly towards the two last waiting tankers.

Sanchez nodded at the driver of the lead rig. ‘Missiles in your cab,’ he said, then turned to his chauffeur, ‘You go in the second one, and take the Uzi with you.’

The chauffeur did as he was told, checking the Uzi as he climbed into the second cab and waited until his chief, holding on to the briefcase, had settled himself into the first tanker’s cab.

They slowly moved out.

Above them the pick-up truck, being driven by Braun as the rearguard of the convoy, came to a halt, after having gone straight through the debris and flames that littered the road. He had been going at speed and only braked when he saw Perez and his men trying to get themselves together, wiping their eyes and coughing.

The pick-up stopped right by Perez. The two men merely looked at each other, their faces heavy with anger. The three other men, who had been under Perez’s command did not look at anyone. Braun gunned the engine and they went hurtling down the road. They were not far behind Bond, who got his first glimpse of the pick-up as he approached the wreckage and pool of fire across the road. There was no time to stop. Bond slewed the wheel to avoid Sanchez’s car, then went straight through the fire, putting his foot down. He could just make out the two tankers ahead as they came to straighter roads and the terrain began to flatten out.

The two tankers were taking it easy, doing a steady sixty-five. Soon they would reach towns and villages, before turning back towards Isthmus and the airport. He pressed the accelerator harder, and saw the pick-up, minus Perez’s three men, who had not found the stomach to go through the flames and gasoline in such a comparatively open and slower vehicle. Even from the mirror, Bond could see the pick-up’s tyres were smoking badly. He was still looking in the mirror when the first burst of fire, from Sanchez’s chauffeur’s Uzi rattled across the bonnet of the cab.

A moment later, as Bond was going for broke in an attempt to overtake the tanker now in front of him, another burst shattered the windshield. He punched out a hole with his fist, and made up his mind quickly. Setting the cab’s cruise control to seventy mph, Bond smashed the remainder of the windshield and steered so that it faced immediately behind the rear of the tanker in front of him.

This was no time to hang around. He pulled himself out of the cab on to the bonnet, crawling forward until the radiator was only feet from the growing circle which was the rear of the tanker. A short inspection ladder went up the back, at the bottom of which was the main valve. Twice, Bond almost had the valve in his hand. Then again, but this time he grasped the lower rung of the inspection ladder. As he did so, the tanker went into a turn, accelerating as its driver took it around.

Bond found himself stretched between cab and the tanker. It was the tanker that won, picking up Bond and pulling him from the bonnet. The tanker continued around the bend, the cab went in a straight line, off the road and across the stretch of parched earth on the far side of the verge.

Two bullets clanged into the back of the tanker, inches from Bond’s head. The pick-up with Perez and Braun was gaining. He reached out and finally got a grasp on the main valve. It turned easily, and gasoline started to flood out onto the road.

Bond continued up the ladder just in time to see the pick-up, its tyres still smoking from the pass it had made through the earlier wreckage, hit the gas on the road.

Flames lit up all around the pick-up. It stayed on a straight course for around thirty seconds, the two occupants screaming and struggling to get out. Then the fire took hold and appeared to turn in on the pick-up which disappeared for a fraction of a second in a red bloom of flame before it left the road.

By now, Bond was atop the tanker and realising the situation in which he had placed himself. As the tanker moved forward, so more gasoline pumped out of the valve, and the flames, begun by the pick-up were now racing towards the tanker.

Pam, who had been wheeling and banking in an attempt to find Bond, saw the cab leave the road, and then felt the airplane rock to the next fireball. She turned in its direction and took in the situation in a second.

There was practically no time, she realised, as she lowered her flaps and began to make an approach above the running flames. She was beating the flames by less than seconds now, cutting her engine and gliding down to less than four feet above the tanker, holding her line of flight until she felt Bond’s weight on the undercarriage. She opened the throttle and put the nose up, turning hard left as soon as there was enough airspeed. The plane was starting to bank when the tanker exploded.

‘One to go,’ Pam said it aloud, and knew instinctively what Bond would want. It was not her idea of Saturday afternoon fun, but she wanted vengeance as well. She opened the throttle, turning back, low towards the road and the last tanker. Flaps down again and approaching from the rear, Pam kept the airplane level, losing height slowly.

Underneath, watching and waiting as he hung from the undercarriage strut, Bond saw movement in the cab. It was Sanchez himself and they were now only fifty yards from the tanker, and around a hundred feet up.

Forty feet, and fifty up. Bond’s heart missed a beat. He could clearly see Sanchez now, half in and half out of the cab, another missile balanced on his shoulder as he took careful aim at the light airplane. Down, Pam, fast, Bond willed her.

Ten feet away and about fifteen above the tanker. Sanchez leaning further out to make certain of his shot. Over the tanker now, and at almost the same moment, Bond dropped, Pam raised the airplane’s nose and Sanchez squeezed the trigger.

Bond landed feet first, slipping and almost sliding right down the side of the tanker. He slapped his hands hard against the metal and, almost by sheer willpower, hauled himself up again.

Pam had climbed away when the missile struck, missing the fuselage but clipping the tailplane so that she lost all directional control. Bond could not bear to watch, in any case he had other things to do. Pulling himself to the back of the tanker, he swung on to the inspection ladder, once more heading for the valve and its precious gasoline. He was quite prepared to go as well if it meant ending Sanchez’s life.

He got to the valve as the rig slowed, obviously coming to a stop: he turned the valve and the gasoline spurted out. At the same moment he heard Pam’s aircraft slam into the ground a mile or so away.

As a tanker came to a skidding stop, so Bond climbed back on to the top of the tank as he heard the cab doors slam. He moved as quietly as possible along the gleaming metal surface, while below him Sanchez was screaming, ‘Get that valve! No, leave it, I’ll do it myself.’ Bond reached the end of the tank and was standing above the gap between it and the cab. He had been here before, he thought, but this was not the same.

He dropped, landing reasonably, and started to uncouple the tank from the cab. Once it was clear, he thought, the tank would roll back, for they were on a slight incline.

He uncoupled and started to reach out for the hydraulic lines which were the only things keeping the tank held to the cab. As he reached, he heard a roar of rage. Sanchez, a huge machete in his hand, stood beside the coupling.

‘Now, James Bond,’ he was breathing heavily. ‘Now, I’ll have your head.’ He leapt up into the space between the tank and cab, bringing the machete down in a fast hard chop which was deflected by the hydraulic lines. Both men stood on the tiny ledge of the tank which began to roll away from the cab, the final umbilical cord severed.

The tank gathered speed as it went backwards and neither man could move as they clung to pieces of the ruptured lines. They felt the first bumps as it left the road, and began to roll in Sanchez’s direction.

Bond jumped, pushing himself away and landing well clear as the tank turned over twice, its main seam ripping open and spilling gasoline onto the dusty dry ground.

After the noise came an eerie silence. Sanchez, Bond thought, could never have survived. He skirted the great pools of gasoline, keeping well away in case the whole thing blew. No sign of life anywhere. Taking no chances, he completed the circle, ending up where he had landed after his leap.

There was no sign of the driver, but he was the last of Bond’s worries. If Sanchez was dead . . . The hand caught his hair, strong and unexpected. Bond dropped to his knees. The stench of gasoline on Sanchez’s clothing was strong as he hauled Bond’s head back, the machete raised.