Bond Movies 03 - Licence to Kill (8 page)

‘Well, well, well . . .’ his lips creased into a smile. ‘Look’ee here, me hearties.’

‘What you found, James?’ from Sharky on the bridge.

‘The girl.’

‘What girl?’

‘The one I last saw when Sanchez made his visit to Cray Cay. Sanchez’s girlfriend. Miss Galaxy, the flamboyantly-named Lupe Lamora.’

‘That mean Sanchez’s aboard?’

‘It could very well mean that. Could we move in a little closer?’

‘Sure thing, James. Anything. You enjoying yourself?’

‘Inordinately, Sharky my old shipmate.’ Indeed, Lupe was a sight for eyes infected by the most severe conjunctivitis. As the fishing boat moved closer, so Bond watched the girl stretch in the sun and begin to cover her body with some kind of lotion. ‘Careful, Lupe,’ Bond muttered. ‘Too much sun can be as harmful as too much tobacco and too much booze.’

Sharky must have heard him, for he laughed and asked since when had Bond let that kind of thing worry him?

Bond smiled again and murmured back, ‘You’d be surprised, Shark. I’ve cut down massively on my cigarette intake, and I’ve really never been all that heavy on the drink. Good wines, yes; good whisky, the odd Martini, if it’s made properly. I fear Felix has been libelling my reputation.’

They had come in quite close now, and Bond saw someone else he recognised, coming down from the bridge. Milton Krest himself. The man who was partly responsible for Della’s death and Felix Leiter’s injuries.

‘That bastard Krest’s aboard,’ Bond whispered loud enough for Sharky to hear above their engine noise, and the whine coming from
Wavekrest
.

‘Then we might be in luck.’ As Sharky said it, so Bond saw one of the men on deck, wearing a wetsuit, shout something to Krest who turned and looked straight at the fishing boat.

A minute later, Krest had a loudhailer in his hand. His voice echoed across the water, as the hailer was pointed directly at Sharky’s boat. ‘Ahoy! D’you hear there! Fishing vessel stand off. We have divers in the water. I say again. Divers in the water. You are a danger!’

Bond pressed himself down among the bits of rope and other junk piled in the bows. ‘Better make for the headland, Sharky, and wave nicely, just to please the man.’

‘Aye-aye, Cap’n.’ There was a hint of sarcasm in Sharky’s voice.

‘Run away, Sharky. Live to fight another day – or I should say another night.’

When they were out of the immediate vicinity of
Wavekrest
, Bond shifted his position, crawling back towards the stern and refocusing the glasses. As he did so, there was another flash, low in the water, on the periphery of his vision. He refocused again. There, moving fast, just above the surface, water pluming behind it, was a short, stubby periscope.

‘They have a submersible in the water,’ he told Sharky. ‘Powerful and fast by the look of it. Could be an unmanned probe. But I reckon we’ll get the answer to that, and all the other questions, tonight. Do you happen to have any spare tarpaulin aboard?’

‘Yep, sure do.’

‘Good. Any odd bits of wood, or metal?’

‘The whole of this tub’s made of odd bits of wood. Yeah, I got some metal. Two old aerials that broke off in the winds we had last winter. Why?’

‘I’m going to a fancy dress party. On board
Wavekrest
. Give them all a nice surprise. We might find Sanchez into the bargain.’

‘A fancy dress party?’ Sharky screwed up his face.

‘Why not? Just get behind that headland and anchor. I think this is a job for tonight.’

There was a long pause. Then Sharky said, ‘Might I ask what you’re going to this fancy dress party as? Long John Silver?’

‘You must learn not to be so inquisitive, Sharky. I’ll tell you one thing though. I’ll get first prize in the grand parade.’

6

THE JOURNEY OF THE MANTA

The
Manta birostris
, usually known simply as the manta ray, is the largest of the manta family. Its name originates from the huge wing-like fins – capes, or mantles – and they come in one size: very large; sometimes seventeen feet long and twenty-two feet wide. They move through the water like massive ocean birds, and though they look both graceful and sinister, the manta ray is not dangerous to man – except for the fact that a swipe from one of the fins can send a diver out of control, doing a great deal of damage.

This one swam low, almost skimming over the coral and sand in the entrance to Coy Sol Bay. In the darkness, a couple of hours before dawn, it changed direction slightly, seeing pinpoints of light moving towards it, then continued on its stately way, passing four scuba divers, torches lit to guide themselves, heading in the direction from which the manta had come.

A little further on the manta saw a very bright light, slicing through the water, as though searching. The light held on the huge fish for almost a minute, then began to turn away.

Aboard
Wavekrest
the crewmen on duty had spotted the shape in the water. They had the probe,
Sentinel
, out in a matter of minutes, guided by a specialised operator and attached to
Wavekrest
by an umbilical cord of electronics and wires. When
Sentinel
spotted the manta its powerful light sought out the big fish, and the cameras sent back pictures to the mother ship,
Wavekrest
. It was the periscope of
Sentinel
that Bond had spotted before he and Sharky had run for the cover of the headland that very morning.

‘Only a manta,’ the senior man on the bridge watched the creature on its monitor, fascinated, and a little repulsed by the protruding horns of flesh, like a beetle’s antennae, curving out from its head. The officer in charge of the bridge picked up a telephone and called the probe operator. ‘Bring
Sentinel
back in,’ he said.

Sentinel
looked like some futuristic model submarine, about four feet in length and three feet high, with an oblong rising higher above the centreline of the fish-shaped hull. The oblong was a watertight compartment which contained the thing’s eyes – its merciless searchlight, cameras and stubby periscope. Behind the oblong compartment, another watertight box slanted back towards the stern. This was obviously some kind of storage container, for its flat top clearly showed hinges and a securing lock.

Now, it turned away from the giant manta ray and began to move swiftly back towards
Wavekrest
. James Bond put out his hands and hitched a ride on
Sentinel
– the name was clearly embossed on the rear, above a U-shaped handle to which he could cling.

The black tarpaulin, fashioned over a wire and bamboo frame that had been the manta, fell away and drifted to the bottom. Bond and Sharky had worked for several hours to make the manta: bending wire and some of Sharky’s fishing poles; sewing with line, tying down and cutting the tarpaulin, to make James Bond’s ‘fancy dress’. It was a job well done, for when Bond put on a wetsuit and scuba pack the tarpaulin mantle covered him, even allowing him to move his arms, and so imitate the action of the fins.

‘Very lifelike,’ Sharky had said. ‘Just hope you don’t meet a male manta down there who takes you for a likely mate.’

‘Or an amorous female,’ Bond laughed. He had roughly an hour’s supply of air, and considered he could reach
Wavekrest
well within that time.

Now, as he clung to the rear of
Sentinel
, his fancy-dress party was over, and the real job would be getting on board
Wavekrest
. If Sanchez
was
aboard, the security would be very tight, but he had abandoned the camouflage in favour of speed.

Sentinel
began to slow in the water and Bond, still clinging on, allowed his body to sink from view. He could see they were being drawn towards the stern of the ship, and realised why there was such an overhang. A pair of doors, big enough to take at least three men, opened up just below the waterline.
Sentinel
was gradually being pulled into what was virtually a dock within the mother ship,
Wavekrest
. He still hung on, remaining under water as the doors closed and the probe started to move upwards, presumably lifted by an electronic winch.

Sentinel
broke surface, but Bond stayed below water and behind the craft. There was plenty of bright light in the dock, and, just above the waterline, he could see the refracted image of a man leaning over the probe, attaching other lines to it. As he came to the rear, the rippling figure bent down, as though to examine something towards the stern.

Bond prayed the man was working alone. As he bent really low above Bond, so the agent lashed out with his feet, to give an upward momentum, fist clenched and his arm rigid, breaching the water like a small missile.

More by luck than judgement, he felt his knuckles crunch on to the side of the operator’s jaw, and saw him reel back against the wall of the dock, his head hitting the metal with a nasty thud.

With as much agility as he could manage in a wetsuit and the heavy scuba pack, Bond pulled himself up on to the narrow metal strip which ran around the probe’s docking area. The man was wearing a boiler suit, and he now looked like a pile of dirty laundry, crumpled in a heap, head sagging forward and one arm outstretched towards
Sentinel
and the water in which it still floated, hanging on chains.

The probe operator was alive but out for the count, the force of his head hitting the metal wall having done the real damage. Bond saw that the probe’s control mechanism was still switched on – a box, set in the bulkhead, with an array of dials and two levers, like computer joysticks, with which the speed and direction was remotely controlled. Above the box a monitor flickered, busy with ‘snow’, which meant all picture signals from the probe had been cut off.

Bond leaned against the bulkhead for a moment, looking around. On the far side, near a companionway ladder leading to the decks above, was a solid metal door, inset with thick glass. To one side, tubing connected to a high boxed-in control with a small, lightning-flash sticker and danger sign on it. Above the box was a big dial. A pressure gauge. A divers’ decompression chamber, Bond thought.

He dragged the sagging body of the probe operator over to the chamber, pulled down on the heavy lever that controlled the door’s locking device, and pushed the body inside. Stacks of neat oblongs, shrink-wrapped in blue plastic, were piled inside the chamber, but he had no time to examine these now. Stripping off his scuba gear, retaining his knife in its sheath attached to a belt, Bond left the chamber and reactivated the door lock. It was time to see if Sanchez was on board.

Barefoot, and wearing only the dark slacks and T-shirt that had been under his wetsuit, Bond slowly climbed the companionway ladder, leading to the main deck, abaft the main superstructure. The noises were normal for a ship at anchor during the dog watch: the light slapping of water as
Wavekrest
rode the slight sea; murmurs from for’ard, above, on the bridge. All the companionways would be open on such a warm night, he thought. Riding lights burned, green and red, with a few low deck lights so that crew could find their way around.

Bond moved to the port side, where he had spotted the luxurious cabin door through the binoculars on Sharky’s fishing boat. In the far corner of his mind there was slight concern about Sharky, for the divers he had seen when disguised as the manta ray had been heading in the general direction of the fishing boat. He scrubbed the worry from his mind. Sharky was big enough to look after himself.

From where he stood, in the darkness, Bond could make out the lines of a small lifeboat, swung in on its davits. The lifeboat would, he figured, be almost opposite the cabin from which he had seen Lupe – tall, slim, dark and with a figure that would tempt a saint – emerge during the previous morning. If Sanchez was aboard, that would be where Bond would find him.

Almost silently he padded across the deck into the shadow, and relative safety of the lifeboat. It was as he crossed the strip of deck that he realised the cabin door he had seen through the binoculars stood slightly ajar, and lights shone brightly through the ports. Now there was even more. Voices. Milton Krest, slurred and aggressive, combined with Lupe Lamora’s angry, fiery accented English.

‘You’d better know you caused us a whole mess of trouble, girl.’ Krest’s voice was not only slurred with drink but hard and bitter.

‘You’re
borracho
. I told you, I was trying to sleep. Why you keep bothering me like this? Get yourself to bed.’

There was a scraping noise, as though Krest had risen from a chair. ‘You know, when Sanchez heard you’d run off with that idiot, he went nuts. Never seen him so angry.’

‘This is none of your business, Krest. Go, and let me get some sleep.’

‘Oh, none of my business, eh? None – of – my – business. You gotta understand, kiddie, it is
my
business when your playing around gets Sanchez arrested and leaves me to mount an escape operation. That escape put my own people at risk. Not just my people either. You realise the Key West warehouse got raided by the DEA. Cost me a whole load of money.’

‘He’ll get your money back.’

Krest gave an unpleasant laugh. ‘Sanchez doesn’t work like that. You haven’t figured that out for yourself yet? I’ve known him the hell of a sight longer than you, you bimbo. I’ve seen girls like you come and go . . .’

Lupe snapped, ‘Get out, Krest. You’re drunk, and you’re annoying me. So get out. Now. Or I’ll make certain Sanchez won’t give you a red cent.’

Krest’s shadow filled the door. ‘We’ve got a serious operation running out here, Lupe. So you just keep in your cabin.’ Bond could see him clearly now, dressed in old slacks and a shirt. ‘What’re you so damned stuck-up for? He fixed that beauty contest for you. You know that? He fixed it. He . . .’ Something hit the wall near the door which Krest closed, giving a little laugh. ‘Stupid little cow,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Doesn’t know when she’s well off.’ He was unsteady on his feet as he made his way to a cabin door nearer the aft end of the superstructure.