Bond Movies 06 - The World Is Not Enough

Ian Fleming's

Raymond Benson

Story by Neil Purvis & Robert Wade

Screenplay by Neil Purvis & Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for their help in preparing this book

Bruce Feirstein

Peter Lamont

James McMahon

Mona Re Robertson

As he rode in the taxi from Bilbao’s airport, James Bond’s recollection of M’s orders was clear enough. Bring back Sir Robert's money.

Nevertheless, Bond had a secondary objective in mind, and one that might prove to be slightly more of a risk. Initially, he had bristled at the notion of being a messenger boy for a wealthy oil tycoon, even if the man was a fellow Briton. He had to make sure that Sir Robert received a refund for a bad purchase he had made on the black market. Bond normally considered this kind of assignment a waste of time for someone in the Double-0 Section, but then he thought about how the job presented another, more appealing, opportunity.

Fine, he thought. He would get the money back - that was not a problem. But it was more important to avenge the death of a fellow agent.

0012 had been a recent recruit to SIS, and Bond had barely known him. Yet, when a fellow agent was murdered in the field, the entire Double-0 Section took it personally. It was like losing a member of the family. Even though M had warned Bond that entertaining notions of a vendetta might cloud his judgement on this particular assignment, 007 felt that it was his duty to even the score if he could.

It had begun yesterday with a summons from his chief. Bond had welcomed the interruption from the pile of  

intelligence reports he routinely absorbed in between assignments. Hoping that he was to be sent across the world on a potentially interesting case or indeed anything that would get him out of London, Bond had taken the lift to M’s office in the SIS building on the Thames. Miss Moneypenny had offered no hint as to what the assignment was to be, except that she was arranging for him to fly to Spain.

M was busy with a document on her desk when he walked in.

‘Sit down, Double-0 Seven,’ she said without looking up.

Over the past few years Bond had strengthened his relationship with his relatively new boss at SIS. The new M had earned Bond’s respect and loyalty. He liked to think he had earned hers.

However, when she said, ‘Sir Robert King needs an errand boy, and you’re he,’ Bond blinked.

‘Ma’am?’ Bond wasn’t sure that he had heard her correctly. ‘The oil tycoon?'

‘That’s right. He needs you to go to Bilbao tomorrow to pick up a case full of money from a Swiss bank there. It’s a refund for a secret report he bought on the black market. The document wasn’t what he had been led to believe it was. He complained. The sellers agreed to a refund in good faith. An intermediary has requested that MI6 send someone to pick it up. I’d like you to do it, Double-0 Seven.’

Bond frowned. He was not a person who kept up with the lives of Britain’s rich and famous, but he knew enough about Sir Robert King to know that he was certainly high on the list of UK VIPs.

‘Besides,’ M continued, ‘it would be a personal favour for me. Sir Robert is an old friend’

Bond was not surprised. M had friends in powerful places. She had come to SIS well connected and was able to play the politicians with more finesse than her predecessor ever cared to do. Even though she was the head of SIS, M was not averse

to socialising with Britain's elite. In this day and age it was probably wise intelligence policy.

Bond silently reviewed what he knew about the man. Sir Robert King, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of King Industries Plc., had made a fortune over a quarter of a century ago from a lucrative construction business inherited from his father. When King married his second wife, whose family owned the remnants of a mismanaged oil importing firm, he slowly moved King Industries’ interests toward petroleum production, following the tragic death of his wife, King spent the next ten years saving the company’s assets and tripled his income, as well as Britain’s own oil supplies. He had become a national hero of sorts and had been knighted. Since that time King Industries had become a major player in a worldwide, competitive business. King was always popping up in the British press. Bond’s impression of him was that he was something of a charming rogue who enjoyed the life of a very rich, elderly playboy. Bond had never met the man, nor did he wish to.

And then there was the daughter . . .

‘What ever happened with the Elektra King kidnapping case?’ Bond asked. ‘It isn’t talked about much these days, is it?' M looked at Bond with steel in her eyes. ‘That’s completely irrelevant to your assignment, Double-0 Seven.’

Bond blinked again. Had he touched some kind of nerve? It had happened a little over a year ago. Elektra King, Sir Robert’s glamorous daughter, a girl in her late twenties, had been kidnapped and held for ransom. At the time Bond had been out of the country on assignment. He didn’t know much about the case; only that Miss King had been held for two or three weeks, and then had miraculously escaped on her own. Most of her captors were killed. He remembered that it had been reported in the British press and on the BBC, but the coverage disappeared from the news surprisingly fast considering the victim involved.

‘I like to know all the facts before I walk into something, especially if it happens to be a Swiss bank,’ he said.

M was not amused. ‘MI5 took over the kidnapping case as it occurred in this country. We have never had anything to do with it,’ M said. ‘As for the press, perhaps for once they respected the family’s wishes not to be bothered about a painful and traumatic event. Thank God they left the poor girl alone after her ordeal. But never mind that. We are connected to this report Sir Robert bought. It was one of Double-0 Twelve’s possessions. The report was stolen from his office when he was killed.’

‘Really?’ Bond asked, interested now. News of 0012’s murder in Omsk had sent a shockwave throughout the department. One of the few Double-0 agents who was permanently stationed abroad, 0012 was found shot dead in the Russian station a month ago. The office had been ransacked and all classified material taken.

‘I don't want you to go entertaining notions of a vendetta, Double-0 Seven,’ M warned. ‘It can cloud your judgement. Double-0 Twelve’s murder is being investigated. Your assignment is to bring back Sir Robert’s money.’

With that she had dismissed him. Moneypenny provided him with his ticket, travel details and the contact at the bank, a man named Lachaise. Before leaving the building, Bond visited Q Branch to pick up something he knew might be useful.

He had flown on Iberia Airlines to Bilbao the next morning, and now he was being whisked by taxi into the capital of Vizcaya province in northern Spain. The city’s outskirts, near the airport, were a hub of maritime commerce and heavy industry. Bond was driven to the Casco Viejo, the nerve centre that is bundled up on the right bank of the Ria de Bilbao, where he could see the municipality’s characteristics change to a metropolitan cluster of banks and modem office buildings. During the day the city retained a business-like and somewhat elegant ambience, not unlike that of some French provincial capitals. All that disappeared after sundown, for Bond could attest to the celebrated Spanish love for rowdy night-long revelry in this particular city. He once had a memorable evening (and morning) with a fiery senorita in Bilbao. A flamenco dancer by profession, she had used what he could only best describe as ‘rhythmic charms’ to demonstrate that Latin lovers really are warm-blooded.

The taxi pulled around Alameda de Mazarredo, where the Museo Guggenheim de Arte Contemporaneo is now the showpiece of the waterfront. Designed by American architect Frank Ghery, one critic has described the spectacular titanium-skinned building as ‘a cauliflower on LSD’. Still, Bond couldn’t help but be impressed with the shimmering, iconoclastic structure, which certainly seemed out of place in a city not known for its love of art. Too bad he hadn’t the time to take a look at the collection, but he wasn’t in Spain for that.

Bond stopped the taxi in the Plaza del Museo, then walked away from the Guggenheim toward a nearby rather nondescript office building. The engraved brass plaque in front announced ‘La Banque Suisse de l’lndustrie (Privee)’. Underneath were translations in Spanish, German and English. Before entering, Bond slipped on the lightly-tinted glasses that he had picked up from Q Branch, then made a quick check of his belongings, namely the Walther PPK under his navy sport jacket and a Sykes-Fairbairn throwing knife concealed in a sheath on his lower back.

He entered the building and gave his name to the mousy, horn-rimmed receptionist. She punched some buttons on her desk and spoke French into her headset. She nodded, then said to Bond, smoothly switching to English, ‘Mister Lachaise will be with you momentarily.’ Bond smiled and sat down in the comfortable lounge. The Guggenheim could be seen in all its splendour across the Plaza through a large wall-sized window.

Three Armani-clad thugs eventually appeared from behind a column. The suits were incongruous, for they looked more like professional wrestlers than bankers.

‘Mister Bond?’ one of them grunted. ‘Come this way’

Bond stood and followed them into the lift. The three men stood silently around him, one man in front, blocking the doors.

‘Nice day,’ Bond said. The men didn’t acknowledge him.

The lift stopped at the top floor. The big men escorted Bond down a hallway, past an attentive secretary, and into a luxurious office, the focal point of which was a large oak desk. Behind the desk were three floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto a balcony and the street beyond.

Lachaise, an extremely well-groomed gentleman, was sitting at the desk studying figures on a printout.

‘Mister Bond,’ the head thug announced.

As if on cue, the other two men began to frisk Bond. They quickly found the Walther and set it on the desk. A few seconds later, they found the knife and laid it beside the other things.

The head man nodded to Lachaise that Bond was clean.

When this formality had been completed, Lachaise looked up with patronising amusement and said, ‘Good. Now that we’re all comfortable, why don’t you sit down?’ He gestured to a leather armchair, then sat back behind the desk. ‘So good of you to come to see me, Mister Bond. Particularly at such short notice’

Bond said, ‘If you can’t trust a Swiss banker, what's the world coming to?’

Lachaise laughed gently and punched a button. Bond dropped into the chair as a very attractive brunette entered the room, pushing a cart carrying a large silver metal case and a cigar box. She picked up the box and offered it to Bond. It was full of Havanas. He shook his head, keeping his attention on the banker. She then offered the box to

Lachaise, who took a cigar and set it on the ashtray on the desk.

‘Thank you, Giulietta,’ Lachaise said. He turned his attention to Bond. ‘It wasn’t easy, but I retrieved the money. No doubt Sir Robert will be pleased to see it again.’

The girl picked up the case and set it in Bond’s lap. She opened it with a flourish, a seductive smile on her face during the entire process. The case was full of fifty pound sterling notes.

It s all there at the current exchange rate. Here is the statement.’

Giulietta offered Bond a piece of paper, which he took and gave a cursory glance. It was an odd number, calculated down to the penny: £3,030,003.03.

‘Would you like to check my figures?’ the girl asked. ‘I’m sure they’re perfectly rounded,’ Bond replied. She was certainly not Swiss, Bond observed: she looked Mediterranean, with long, curly hair and large brown eyes. Spanish? Southern Italian, perhaps?

She closed the case and stepped back as Lachaise said, ‘It’s all there; I assure you,’

Bond slipped the statement into his pocket, then slowly and deliberately removed his glasses. He eyed Lachaise and, after a brief pause said, ‘I didn’t come only for the money. The report Sir Robert bought was stolen from an MI6 agent. Who was killed for it.’

Bond reached into another pocket and pulled out a photo of 0012. He laid it on the desk in front of Lachaise.

‘I want to know who killed him.’

Lachaise raised his eyebrows, attempting to register confusion and surprise, as if he had no idea what Bond was talking about. He glanced at the photo. After an obviously rehearsed moment of reflection, Lachaise went, ‘Tsk, tsk,’ nodded his head, and said, ‘Oh, right, quite so. Yes, terrible tragedy.’ Bond looked at him hard, waiting for him to go on.

‘But,’ Lachaise said, raising a finger, ‘not to put too fine a point on it, your MI6 agent had stolen the document himself, two weeks earlier, from a Russian operative.’

As if that excused the killer.

‘I want a name,’ Bond said.

Lachaise smiled much too warmly. ‘Discretion, Mister Bond. I’m a Swiss banker. Surely you can understand my position. . ’ ‘Which is what?' Bond snapped. ‘Neutral? Or just pretending to be?’