James Bond Anthology (330 page)

Bond’s breath came out with a rush. He momentarily closed his eyes to rest them. Gipsies! If that piece of machinery was any evidence, inside the mound, deep down in the earth, was certainly the most professional left-behind spy unit that had ever been devised – far more brilliant than anything England had prepared to operate in the wake of a successful German invasion, far better than what the Germans themselves had left behind in the Ardennes. A shiver of excitement and anticipation – almost of fear – ran down Bond’s spine. So he had been right! But what was to be the next act?

Now, from the direction of the mound, came a thin high-pitched whine – the sound of an electric motor at very high revs. The rose-bush trembled slightly. The bees took off, hovered, and settled again. Slowly, a jagged fissure formed down the centre of the big bush and smoothly widened. Now the two halves of the bush were opening like double doors. The dark aperture broadened until Bond could see the roots of the bush running into the earth on both sides of the opening doorway. The whine of machinery was louder and there was a glint of metal from the edges of the curved doors. It was like the opening of a hinged Easter egg. In a moment the two segments stood apart and the two halves of the rose-bush, still alive with bees, were splayed widely open. Now the inside of the metal caisson that supported the earth and the roots of the bush were naked to the sun. There was a glint of pale electric light from the dark aperture between the curved doors. The whine of the motor had stopped. A head and shoulders appeared, and then the rest of the man. He climbed softly out and crouched, looking sharply round the glade. There was a gun – a Luger – in his hand. Satisfied, he turned and gestured into the shaft. The head and shoulders of a second man appeared. He handed up three pairs of what looked like snowshoes and ducked out of sight. The first man selected a pair and knelt and strapped them over his boots. Now he moved about more freely, leaving no footprints, for the grass flattened only momentarily under the wide mesh and then rose slowly again. Bond smiled to himself. Clever bastards!

The second man emerged. He was followed by a third. Between them they manhandled a motor-cycle out of the shaft and stood holding it slung between them by harness webbing while the first man, who was clearly the leader, knelt and strapped the snowshoes under their boots. Then, in single file, they moved off through the trees towards the road. There was something extraordinarily sinister about the way they softly high-stepped along through the shadows, lifting and carefully placing each big webbed foot in turn.

Bond let out a long sigh of released tension and laid his head softly down on the branch to relax the strain in his neck muscles. So that was the score! Even the last small detail could now be added to the file. While the two underlings were dressed in grey overalls, the leader was wearing the uniform of the Royal Corps of Signals and his motor-cycle was an olive green B.S.A. M.20 with a British Army registration number on its petrol tank. No wonder the SHAPE dispatch-rider had let him get within range. And what did the unit do with its top secret booty? Probably radioed the cream of it out at night. Instead of the periscope, a rose-stalk aerial would rise up from the bush, the pedal generator would get going deep down under the earth and off would go the highspeed cipher groups. Ciphers? There would be many good enemy secrets down that shaft if Bond could round up the unit when it was outside the hide-out. And what a chance to feed back phoney intelligence to GRU, the Soviet Military Intelligence Apparat which was presumably the control! Bond’s thoughts raced.

The two underlings were coming back. They went into the shaft and the rose-bush closed over it. The leader with his machine would be among the bushes on the verge of the road. Bond glanced at his watch. Six-fifty-five. Of course! He would be waiting to see if a dispatch-rider came along. Either he did not know the man he had killed was doing a weekly run, which was unlikely, or he was assuming that SHAPE would now change the routine for additional security. These were careful people. Probably their orders were to clean up as much as possible before the summer came and there were too many holiday-makers about in the forest. Then the unit might be pulled out and put back again in the winter. Who could say what the long-term plans were? Sufficient that the leader was preparing for another kill.

The minutes ticked by. At seven-ten the leader reappeared. He stood in the shadow of a big tree at the edge of the clearing and whistled once on a brief, high, birdlike note. Immediately the rose-bush began to open and the two underlings came out and followed the leader back into the trees. In two minutes they were back with the motor-cycle slung between them. The leader, after a careful look round to see that they had left no traces, followed them down into the shaft and the two halves of the rose-bush closed swiftly behind him.

Half an hour later life had started up in the glade again. An hour later still, when the high sun had darkened the shadows, James Bond silently edged backwards along his branch, dropped softly on to a patch of moss behind some brambles and melted carefully back into the forest.That evening Bond’s routine call with Mary Ann Russell was a stormy one. She said: ‘You’re crazy. I’m not going to let you do it. I’m going to get Head of F to ring up Colonel Schreiber and tell him the whole story. This is SHAPE’s job. Not yours.’

Bond said sharply: ‘You’ll do nothing of the sort. Colonel Schreiber says he’s perfectly happy to let me make a dummy run tomorrow morning instead of the duty dispatch-rider. That’s all he needs to know at this stage. Reconstruction of the crime sort of thing. He couldn’t care less. He’s practically closed the file on this business. Now, be a good girl and do as you’re told. Just put my report on the printer to M. He’ll see the point of me cleaning this thing up. He won’t object.’

‘Damn M.! Damn you! Damn the whole silly Service!’ There were angry tears in the voice. ‘You’re just a lot of children playing at Red Indians. Taking these people on by yourself! It’s – it’s showing off. That’s all it is. Showing off.’

Bond was beginning to get annoyed. He said: ‘That’s enough, Mary Ann. Put that report on the printer. I’m sorry, but it’s an order.’

There was resignation in the voice. ‘Oh, all right. You don’t have to pull your rank on me. But don’t get hurt. At least you’ll have the boys from the local Station to pick up the bits. Good luck.’

‘Thanks, Mary Ann. And will you have dinner with me tomorrow night? Some place like Armenonville. Pink champagne and gipsy violins. Paris in the spring routine.’

‘Yes,’ she said seriously. ‘I’d like that. But then take care all the more, would you? Please?’

‘Of course I will. Don’t worry. Goodnight.’

‘’Night’

Bond spent the rest of the evening putting a last high polish on his plans and giving a final briefing to the four men from the Station.It was another beautiful day. Bond, sitting comfortably astride the throbbing B.S.A. waiting for the off, could hardly believe in the ambush that would now be waiting for him just beyond the Carrefour Royal. The corporal from the Signal Corps who had handed him his empty dispatch-case and was about to give him the signal to go said: ‘You look as if you’d been in the Royal Corps all your life, sir. Time for a haircut soon, I’d say, but the uniform’s bang on. How d’you like the bike, sir?’

‘Goes like a dream. I’d forgotten what fun these damned things are.’

‘Give me a nice little Austin A.40 any day, sir.’ The corporal looked at his watch. ‘Seven o’clock just coming up.’ He held up his thumb. ‘Okay.’

Bond pulled the goggles down over his eyes, lifted a hand to the corporal, kicked the machine into gear and wheeled off across the gravel and through the main gates.

Off 184 and on to 307, through Bailly and Noisy-le-Roi and there was the straggle of St Nom. Here he would be turning sharp right on to D.98 – the ‘route de la mort’, as the handler had called it. Bond pulled into the grass verge and once more looked to the long-barrel .45 Colt. He put the warm gun back against his stomach and left the jacket button undone. On your marks! Get set …!

Bond took the sharp corner and accelerated up to fifty. The viaduct carrying the Paris autoroute loomed up ahead. The dark mouth of the tunnel beneath it opened and swallowed him. The noise of his exhaust was gigantic, and for an instant there was a tunnel smell of cold and damp. Then he was out in the sunshine again and immediately across the Carrefour Royal. Ahead the oily tarmac glittered dead straight for two miles through the enchanted forest and there was a sweet smell of leaves and dew. Bond cut his speed to forty. The driving-mirror by his left hand shivered slightly with his speed. It showed nothing but an empty unfurling vista of road between lines of trees that curled away behind him like a green wake. No sign of the killer. Had he taken fright? Had there been some hitch? But then there was a tiny black speck in the centre of the convex glass – a midge that became a fly and then a bee and then a beetle. Now it was a crash-helmet bent low over handle-bars between two big black paws. God, he was coming fast! Bond’s eyes flickered from the mirror to the road ahead and back to the mirror. When the killer’s right hand went for his gun …!

Bond slowed – thirty-five, thirty, twenty. Ahead the tarmac was smooth as metal. A last quick look in the mirror. The right hand had left the handle-bars. The sun on the man’s goggles made huge fiery eyes below the rim of the crash-helmet. Now! Bond braked fiercely and skidded the B.S.A. through forty-five degrees, killing the engine. He was not quite quick enough on the draw. The killer’s gun flared twice and a bullet tore into the saddle-springs beside Bond’s thigh. But then the Colt spoke its single word, and the killer and his B.S.A., as if lassoed from within the forest, veered crazily off the road, leapt the ditch and crashed head-on into the trunk of a beech. For a moment the tangle of man and machinery clung to the broad trunk and then, with a metallic death-rattle, toppled backwards into the grass.

Bond got off his machine and walked over to the ugly twist of khaki and smoking steel. There was no need to feel for a pulse. Wherever the bullet had struck, the crash-helmet had smashed like an eggshell. Bond turned away and thrust his gun back into the front of his tunic. He had been lucky. It would not do to press his luck. He got on the B.S.A. and accelerated back down the road.

He leant the B.S.A. up against one of the scarred trees just inside the forest and walked softly through to the edge of the clearing. He took up his stand in the shadow of the big beech. He moistened his lips and gave, as near as he could, the killer’s bird-whistle. He waited. Had he got the whistle wrong? But then the bush trembled and the high thin whine began. Bond hooked his right thumb through his belt within inches of his gun-butt. He hoped he would not have to do any more killing. The two underlings had not seemed to be armed. With any luck they would come quietly.

Now the curved doors were open. From where he was, Bond could not see down the shaft, but within seconds the first man was out and putting on his snow-shoes and the second followed. Snow-shoes! Bond’s heart missed a beat. He had forgotten them! They must be hidden back there in the bushes. Blasted fool! Would they notice?

The two men came slowly towards him, delicately placing their feet. When he was about twenty feet away, the leading man said something softly in what sounded like Russian. When Bond did not reply, the two men stopped in their tracks. They stared at him in astonishment, waiting perhaps for the answer to a password. Bond sensed trouble. He whipped out his gun and moved towards them, crouching. ‘Hands up.’ He gestured with the muzzle of the Colt. The leading man shouted an order and threw himself forward. At the same time the second man made a dash back towards the hide-out. A rifle boomed from among the trees and the man’s right leg buckled under him. The men from the Station broke cover and came running. Bond fell to one knee and clubbed upwards with his gun-barrel at the hurtling body. It made contact, but then the man was on him. Bond saw finger-nails flashing towards his eyes, ducked and ran into an upper-cut. Now a hand was at his right wrist and his gun was being slowly turned on him. Not wanting to kill, he had kept the safety catch up. He tried to get his thumb to it. A boot hit him in the side of the head and he let the gun go and fell back. Through a red mist he saw the muzzle of the gun pointing at his face. The thought flashed through his mind that he was going to die – die for showing mercy …!

Suddenly the gun-muzzle had gone and the weight of the man was off him. Bond got to his knees and then to his feet. The body, spread-eagled in the grass beside him, gave a last kick. There were bloody rents in the back of the dungarees. Bond looked round. The four men from the Station were in a group. Bond undid the strap of his crash-helmet and rubbed the side of his head. He said: ‘Well, thanks. Who did it?’

Nobody answered. The men looked embarrassed.

Bond walked towards them, puzzled. ‘What’s up?’

Suddenly Bond caught a trace of movement behind the men. An extra leg showed – a woman’s leg. Bond laughed out loud. The men grinned sheepishly and looked behind them. Mary Ann Russell, in a brown shirt and black jeans, came out from behind them with her hands up. One of the hands held what looked like a .22 target pistol. She brought her hands down and tucked the pistol into the top of her jeans. She came up to Bond. She said anxiously: ‘You won’t blame anybody, will you? I just wouldn’t let them leave this morning without me.’ Her eyes pleaded. ‘Rather lucky I did come, really. I mean, I just happened to get to you first. No one wanted to shoot for fear of hitting you.’

Bond smiled into her eyes. He said: ‘If you hadn’t come, I’d have had to break that dinner date.’ He turned back to the men, his voice business-like. ‘All right. One of you take the motor-bike and report the gist of this to Colonel Schreiber. Say we’re waiting for his team before we take a look at the hide-out. And would he include a couple of anti-sabotage men. That shaft may be booby-trapped. All right?’