James Bond Anthology (228 page)

After ten minutes, Commander Pedersen sat back. He reached for his pipe and began filling it absentmindedly. He said, ‘Well, that’s one hell of a story.’ He smiled. ‘And strangely enough, even if I hadn’t had these signals from the Navy Department, I’d believe it. Always did think something like this would happen one of these days. Hell! I have to carry these missiles around, and I’m in command of a nuclear ship. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not terrified by the whole business. Got a wife and two children, and that doesn’t help either. These atomic weapons are just too damned dangerous. Why, any one of these little sandy cays around here could hold the whole of the United States to ransom – just with one of my missiles trained on Miami. And here am I, fellow called Peter Pedersen, age thirty-eight, maybe sane or maybe not, toting around sixteen of the things – enough to damn near wipe out England. However,’ he put his hands down on the desk in front of him, ‘that’s all by the way. Now we’ve got just one small piece of the problem on our hands – small, but as big as the world. So what are we to do? As I see it, the idea of you gentlemen is that this man Largo will be coming back any minute now in his plane after picking up the bombs from where he hid them. If he’s got the bombs, and on what you’ve told me I’ll go along with the probability that he has, this girl will give us the tip-off. Then we close in and arrest his ship or blow it out of the water. Right? But supposing he hasn’t got the bombs on board, or for one reason or another we don’t get the tip-off, what do we do then?’

Bond said quietly, ‘We follow him, sit close on his tail, until the time limit, that’s about twenty-four hours from now, is up. That’s all we can do without causing one hell of a legal stink. When the time limit’s up, we can hand the whole problem back to our governments and they can decide what to do with the
Disco
and the sunken plane and all the rest. By that time, some little man in a speedboat we’ve never heard of may have left one of the bombs off the coast of America, and Miami may have gone up in the air. Or there may be a big bang somewhere else in the world. There’s been plenty of time to take those bombs off the plane and get them thousands of miles from here. Well, that’ll be too bad and we’ll have muffed it. But at this moment we’re in the position of a detective watching a man he thinks is going to commit a murder. Doesn’t even know for sure whether he’s got a gun on him or not. There’s nothing the detective can do but follow the man and wait until he actually pulls the gun out of his pocket and points it. Then, and only then, the detective can shoot the man or arrest him.’ Bond turned to Leiter. ‘Isn’t that about it, Felix?’

‘That’s how it figures. And Captain, Commander Bond here and I are damn sure Largo’s our man and that he’ll be sailing for his target in no time at all. That’s why we agreed to panic and ask you along. One gets you a hundred he’ll be placing that bomb at night and tonight’s the last night he’s got. By the way, Captain, have you got steam up, or whatever the atom boys call it?’

‘I have, and we can be under way in just about five minutes.’ The captain shook his head. ‘But there’s one bit of bad news for you, gentlemen. I just can’t figure how we’re going to keep track of the
Disco
.’

‘How’s that? You’ve got the speed, haven’t you?’ Leiter caught himself pointing his steel hook threateningly at the captain, and hastily brought it down again to his lap.

The captain smiled. ‘Guess so. Guess we could give her a good race on a straight course, but you gentlemen don’t seem to have figured on the navigational hazards in this part of the ocean.’ He pointed at the British Admiralty chart on the wall. ‘Take a look at that. Ever seen a chart with so many figures on it? Looks like a spilled ants’ nest. Those are soundings, gentlemen, and I can tell you that unless the
Disco
sticks to one of the deep-water channels – Tongue of the Ocean, North-West Providence Channel, or the North-East – we’ve had it, as Commander Bond would say. All the rest of that area’ – he waved a hand – ‘may look the same blue colour on a map, but after your trip in that Grumman Goose you know darned well it isn’t the same blue colour. Darned near the whole of that area is banks and shoal with only around three to ten fathoms over it. If I was quite crazy and looking for a nice cosy job ashore, I’d take the ship along surfaced in ten fathoms – if I could bribe the navigator and seal off the echo-sounder from crew members. But even if we got a long spell of ten fathoms on the chart, you got to remember that’s an old chart, dates back to the days of sail, and these banks have been shifting for more than fifty years since it was drawn up. Then there’s the tides that set directly on to and off the banks, and the coral niggerheads that won’t show up on the echo-sounder until you hear the echo of them smashing up the hull or the screw.’ The captain turned back to his desk. ‘No, gentlemen. This Italian vessel was darned well chosen. With that hydrofoil device of hers, she probably doesn’t draw more than a fathom. If she chooses to keep to the shallows, we just haven’t got a chance. And that’s flat.’ The captain looked from one to another of them. ‘Want me to call up the Navy Department and have Fort Lauderdale take over with those fighter bombers you’ve got on call – get them to do a shadowing job?’

The two men looked at each other. Bond said, ‘She won’t be showing lights. They’ll have the hell of a job picking her up at night. What do you say, Felix? Maybe we’d better call them out even if it’s only to keep some sort of a watch off the American coast. Then, if the Captain’s willing, we’ll take the North-West Channel – if the
Disco
sails, that is – and bank on the Bahamas Rocket Station being Target No. 1.’

Felix Leiter ran his left hand through the mop of straw-coloured hair. ‘Goddammit,’ he said angrily. ‘Hell yes, I suppose so. We’re looking fools enough already bringing the
Manta
on stage. What’s a squadron of planes? Sure. We’ve just got to back our hunch that it’s Largo and the
Disco
. Come on, let’s get together with the Captain and whip off a signal that doesn’t look too damned silly – copy to C.I.A. and to your Chief. How do you want it to go?’

‘Admiralty for M., prefixed Operation Thunderball.’ Bond wiped a hand down over his face. ‘God, this is going to put the cat among the pigeons.’ He looked up at the big metal wall clock. ‘Six. That’ll be midnight in London. Popular time to get a signal like this.’

The P.A. System in the ceiling spoke more clearly. ‘Watch Officer to Captain. Police officer with urgent message for Commander Bond.’ The captain pressed a switch and spoke into a desk microphone. ‘Bring him below. Prepare to cast off lines. All hands prepare for sailing.’ The captain waited for the acknowledgement and released the switch. The captain smiled across at them. He said to Bond, ‘What’s the name of that girl? Domino? Well, Domino, say the good word.’

The door opened. A police corporal, his hat off, crashed to attention on the steel flooring and extended a stiff arm. Bond took the buff O.H.M.S. envelope and slit it open. He ran his eyes down the pencilled message signed by the Police Commissioner. Unemotionally he read out:

‘PLANE RETURNED 1730 HOISTED INBOARD. DISCO SAILED AT 1755, FULL SPEED, COURSE NORTH WEST STOP GIRL DID NOT REPEAT NOT REAPPEAR ON DECK AFTER BOARDING.’

Bond borrowed a signal blank from the captain and wrote:

MANTA WILL ENDEAVOUR SHADOW VIA NORTHWEST PROVIDENCE CHANNEL STOP FIGHTER BOMBER SQUADRON FROM FORT LAUDERDALE WILL BE ASKED THROUGH NAVY DEPARTMENT TO COOPERATE WITHIN RADIUS OF TWO HUNDRED MILES OFF FLORIDA COAST STOP MANTA WILL KEEP CONTACT THROUGH WINDSOR FIELD AIR CONTROL STOP NAVY DEPARTMENT AND ADMIRALTY BEING INFORMED STOP PLEASE INFORM GOVERNOR ALSO ADMIRAL CARLSON AND BRIGADIER FAIRCHILD ON ARRIVAL.

Bond signed the message and passed it to the captain, who also signed, as did Leiter. Bond put the message in an envelope and gave it to the corporal, who wheeled smartly and clanked out in his heavy boots.

When the door was shut, the captain pressed down the switch on the intercom. He gave orders to sail, surfaced, course due north, at ten knots. Then he switched off. In the short silence, there was a flurry of background noise, piping and bosuns’ whistles, a thin mechanical whine, and the sound of running feet. The submarine trembled slightly. The captain said quietly, ‘Well, gentlemen, that’s that. I’d like to have the goose a bit less wild and a bit more solid. But I’ll be glad to chase her for you. Now then, that signal.’

With only half his mind on the wording of the signal, Bond sat and worried about the significance of the Commissioner’s message and about Domino. It looked bad. It looked as if either the plane had not brought back the two bombs, or one of them, in which case the mobilization of the
Manta
and of the fighter bombers was a pretty meaningless precaution, hardly justified by the evidence. It could easily be that the crashed Vindicator and the missing bombs were the work of some entirely different group and that, while they chased the
Disco
, the field was being left clear for SPECTRE. But Bond’s instincts refused to allow him to accept this possibility. As cover, the whole
Disco
-Largo set-up was one hundred per cent watertight. It could not be faulted in any respect. That in itself was enough to arouse Bond’s suspicions. A plot of this magnitude and audacity could only have been conceived under faultless cover and down to the smallest detail. Largo could have just set off on his treasure hunt, and everything, down to the last-minute plane recce of the treasure location, to see if there were any fishing boats about for instance, fitted in with that possibility. Or he could be sailing to lay the bomb, adjust the time fuse for perhaps a few hours after the deadline to allow time for its recovery or destruction if England and America at the last moment agreed to pay the ransom, and get far enough away from the danger area to avoid the explosion and establish an alibi. But where was the bomb? Had it arrived on board in the plane and had Domino for some reason been unable to go up on deck to make her signal? Or was it going to be picked up en route to the target area? The westerly course from Nassau, heading perhaps for the North-West Light, through the Berry Island Channel, fitted both possibilities. The sunken plane lay westwards, south of the Biminis, and so did Miami and other possible targets on the American coast. Or, after passing through the channel, about fifty miles west of Nassau, the
Disco
could veer sharply northwards and, after another fifty miles of sailing through shoal water that would
Disco
urage pursuit, get back into the North-West Providence Channel and make straight for the Grand Bahamas and the missile station.

Bond, fretted with indecision and the fear that he and Leiter were making majestic fools of themselves, forced himself to face one certainty – he and Leiter and the
Manta
were engaged on a crazy gamble. If the bomb was on board, if the
Disco
veered north for the Grand Bahamas and the missile station, then, by racing up the North-West Channel, the
Manta
might intercept her in time.

But if this gamble came off, with all its possibilities of error, why hadn’t Domino made her signal? What had happened to her?

21 | VERY SOFTLY, VERY SLOWLY

The
Disco
, a dark torpedo leaving a deep, briefly creaming wake, hurtled across the indigo mirror of the sea. In the big stateroom there was silence save for the dull boom of the engines and the soft tinkle of a glass on the sideboard. Although, as a precaution, the storm shutters were battened down over the portholes, the only light inside came from a single port navigation lantern hung from the roof. The dim red light only just illuminated the faces of the twenty men sitting round the long table, and the red-and-black-shadowed features, contorting with the slight sway of the top light, gave the scene the appearance of a conspiracy in hell.

At the top of the table Largo, his face, though the cabin was air-conditioned, shining with sweat, began to speak. His voice was tense and hoarse with strain. ‘I have to report that we are in a state of emergency. Half an hour ago, No. 17 found Miss Vitali in the well deck. She was standing fiddling with a camera. When No. 17 came upon her she lifted the camera and pretended to take a photograph of Palmyra, although the safety cap was over the lens. No. 17 was suspicious. He reported to me. I went below and took her to her cabin. She struggled with me. Her whole attitude aroused my suspicions. I was forced to subdue her by drastic measures. I took the camera and examined it.’ Largo paused. He said quietly, ‘The camera was a fake. It concealed a Geiger counter. The counter was, very naturally, registering over 500 milliroentgens. I brought her back to consciousness and questioned her. She refused to talk. In due course I shall force her to do so and then she will be eliminated. It was time to sail. I again rendered her unconscious and roped her securely to her bunk. I have now summoned this meeting to acquaint you of this occurrence, which I have already reported to No. 2.’

Largo was silent. A threatening, exasperated growl came from round the table. No. 14, one of the Germans, said through his teeth, ‘And what, Mister No. 1, did No. 2 have to say about this?’

‘He said we were to carry on. He said the whole world is full of Geiger counters looking for us. The secret services of the whole world have been mobilized against us. Some busybody in Nassau, the police probably, was perhaps ordered to have a radiation search made of all ships in harbour. Perhaps Miss Vitali was bribed to bring the counter on board. But No. 2 said that once we have placed the weapon in the target area there will be nothing to fear. I have had the radio operator listening for unusual traffic between Nassau and the Coast. The density is quite normal. If we were suspected, Nassau would be deluged with wireless traffic from London and Washington. But all is quiet. So the operation will proceed as planned. When we are well away from the area, we will dispose of the lead casing of the weapon. The lead casing will contain Miss Vitali.’