Thunderball (7 page)

***

Bond had the most selfish car in England. It was a Mark II Continental Bentley that some rich idiot had married to a telegraph pole on the Great West Road. Bond had bought the bits for £1500 and Rolls had straightened the bend in the chassis and fitted new clockwork--the Mark IV engine with 9.5 compression. Then Bond had gone to Mulliners with £3000, which was half his total capital, and they had sawn off the old cramped sports saloon body and had fitted a trim, rather square convertible two-seater affair, power-operated, with only two large armed bucket seats in black leather. The rest of the blunt end was all knife-edged, rather ugly, trunk. The car was painted in rough, not gloss, battleship gray and the upholstery was black morocco. She went like a bird and a bomb and Bond loved her more than all the women at present in his life rolled, if that were feasible, together.

But Bond refused to be owned by any car. A car, however splendid, was a means of locomotion (he called the Continental "the locomotive''… "I'll pick you up in my locomotive'') and it must at all times be ready to locomote--no garage doors to break one's nails on, no pampering with mechanics except for the quick monthly service. The locomotive slept out of doors in front of his flat and was required to start immediately, in all weathers, and, after that, stay on the road.

The twin exhausts--Bond had demanded two-inch pipes; he hadn't liked the old soft flutter of the marque--growled solidly as the long gray nose topped by a big octagonal silver bolt instead of the winged B, swerved out of the little Chelsea square and into King's Road. It was nine o'clock, too early for the bad traffic, and Bond pushed the car fast up Sloane Street and into the park. It would also be too early for the traffic police, so he did some fancy driving that brought him to the Marble Arch exit in three minutes flat. Then there came the slow round-the-houses into Baker Street and so into Regents Park. Within ten minutes of getting the Hurry call he was going up in the lift of the big square building to the eighth and top floor.

Already, as he strode down the carpeted corridor, he smelled emergency. On this floor, besides M's offices, was housed Communications, and from behind the gray closed doors there came a steady zing and crackle from the banks of transmitters and a continuous machine-gun rattle and clack from the cipher machines. It crossed Bond's mind that a General Call was going out. What the hell had happened?

The Chief of Staff was standing over Miss Moneypenny. He was handing her signals from a large sheaf and giving her, routing instructions. "CIA Washington, Personal for Dulles. Cipher Triple X by Teleprinter. Mathis, Deuxième Bureau. Same prefix and route. Station F for Head of NATO Intelligence. Personal. Standard route through Head of Section. This one by Safe Hand to Head of M.I.5, Personal, copy to Commissioner of Police, Personal, and these''--he handed over a thick batch--"Personal to Heads of Stations from M. Cipher Double X by Whitehall Radio and Portishead. All right? Clear them as quick as you can, there's a good girl. There'll be more coming. We're in for a bad day.''

Miss Moneypenny smiled cheerfully. She liked what she called the shot-and-shell days. It reminded her of when she had started in the Service as a junior in the Cipher Department. She leaned over and pressed the switch on the intercom, "007's here, sir.'' She looked up at Bond. "You're off.'' The Chief of Staff grinned and said, "Fasten your lap-strap.'' The red light went on above M's door. Bond walked through.

Here it was entirely peaceful. M sat relaxed, sideways to his desk looking out of the broad window at the distant glittering fretwork of London's skyline. He glanced up. "Sit down, 007. Have a look at these.'' He reached out and slid some foolscap-sized photostats across the desk. "Take your time.'' He picked up his pipe and began to fill it, absent-minded fingers dipping into the shell-base tobacco jar at his elbow.

Bond picked up the top photostat. It showed the front and back of an addressed envelope, dusted for fingerprints, which were all over its surface.

M glanced sideways. "Smoke if you like.''

Bond said, "Thanks, sir. I'm trying to give it up.''

M said, "Humpf,'' put his pipe in his mouth, struck a match, and inhaled a deep lungful of smoke. He settled himself deeper in his chair. The gray sailor's eyes gazed through the window introspectively, seeing nothing.

The envelope, prefixed "PERSONAL AND MOST IMMEDIATE,'' was addressed to the Prime Minister, by name, at No. 10, Downing Street, Whitehall, London, sw1. Every detail of the address was correct down to the final "P.C.'' to denote that the Prime Minister was a Privy Councillor. The punctuation was meticulous. The stamp was postmarked Brighton, 8:30 a.m. on June 3. It crossed Bond's mind that the letter might therefore have been posted under cover of night and that it would probably have been delivered some time in the early afternoon of the same day, yesterday. A typewriter with a bold, rather elegant type had been used. This fact, together with the generous 5-by-7 ݣinch envelope and the spacing and style of the address, gave a solid, businesslike impression. The back of the envelope showed nothing but fingerprints. There was no sealing wax.

The letter, equally correct and well laid out, ran as follows:

***

Mr Prime Minister,

You should be aware, or you will be if you communicate with the Chief of the Air Staff, that, since approximately 10 p.m. yesterday, 2nd June, a British aircraft carrying two atomic weapons is overdue on a training flight. The aircraft is Villiers Vindicator O/NBR from No. 5 R.A.F. Experimental Squadron based at Boscombe Down. The Ministry of Supply Identification Numbers on the atomic weapons are MOS/bd/654/Mk V. and MOS/ bd/655/Mk V. There are also U.S.A.F. Identification Numbers in such profusion and of such prolixity that I will not weary you with them.

This aircraft was on a NATO training flight with a crew or five and one observer. It carried sufficient fuel for ten hours' flying at 600 m.p.h. at a mean altitude of 40,000 feet.

This aircraft, together with the two atomic weapons, is now in the possession of this organization. The crew and the observer are deceased and you have our authority to inform the next-of-kin accordingly, thus assisting you in preserving, on the grounds that the aircraft has crashed, the degree of secrecy you will no doubt wish to maintain and which will be equally agreeable to ourselves. The whereabouts of this aircraft and of the two atomic weapons, rendering them possible of recovery, will be communicated to you in exchange for the equivalent of £100,000,000 in gold bullion, one thousand, or not less than nine hundred and ninety-nine, fine. Instructions for the delivery of the gold are contained in the attached memorandum. A further condition is that the recovery and disposal of the gold will not be hampered and that a free pardon, under your personal signature and that of the President of the United States, will be issued in the name of this organization and all its members.

Failure to accept these conditions within seven days from 5 p.m. G.M.T. on June 3rd, 1959--i.e. not later than 5 p.m. G.M.T. on June 10th, 1959--will have the following consequences. Immediately after that date a piece of property belonging to the Western Powers, valued at not less than the aforesaid £100,000,000, will be destroyed. There will be loss of life. If, within 48 hours after this warning, willingness to accept our terms is still not communicated, there will ensue, without further warning, the destruction of a major city situated in an undesignated country of the world. There will be very great loss of life. Moreover, between the two occurrences, this organization will reserve to itself the right to communicate to the world the 48-hour time limit. This measure, which will cause widespread panic in every major city, will be designed to hasten your hand.

This, Mr. Prime Minister, is a single and final communication. We shall await your reply, every hour on the hour G.M.T., on the 16-megacycle waveband.

Signed

S.P.E.C.T.R.E.

(The Special Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion)

***

James Bond read through the letter again and put it carefully down on the desk in front of him. He then turned to the second page, a detailed memorandum for the delivery of the gold. "Northwestern slopes of Mount Etna in Sicily… Decca Navigational Aid transmitting on… Full moon period… between midnight and 0100 G.M.T… individual quarter-ton consignments packed in one-foot-thick foam rubber… minimum of three parachutes per consignment… nature of planes and flight schedule to be communicated on the 16-megacycle waveband not later than 24 hours before the operation… Any counter-measures initiated will be considered a breach of contract and will result in the detonation of Atomic Weapon No. 1 or No. 2 as the case may be.'' The typed signature was the same. Both pages had one last line: "Copy to the President of the United States of America, by Registered Airmail, posted simultaneously.''

Bond laid the photostat quietly down on top of the others. He reached into his hip pocket for the gunmetal cigarette case that now contained only nine cigarettes, took one, and lit it, drawing the smoke deep down into his lungs and letting it out with a long, reflective hiss.

M swiveled his chair round so they were facing each other. "Well?''

Bond noticed that M's eyes, three weeks before so clear and vital, were now bloodshot and strained. No wonder! He said, "If this plane, and the weapons, really are missing, I think it stands up, sir. I think they mean it. I think it's a true bill.''

M said, "So does the War Cabinet. So do I.'' He paused. "Yes, the plane with the bombs is missing. And the stock numbers on the bombs are correct.''

8.

"Big Fleas Have Little Fleas…''

Bond said, "What is there to go on, sir?''

"Damned little, practically speaking nothing. Nobody's ever heard of these SPECTRE people. We know there's some kind of independent unit working in Europe--we've bought some stuff from them, so have the Americans, and Mathis admits now that Goltz, that French heavy-water scientist who went over last year, was assassinated by them, for big money, as a result of an offer he got out of the blue. No names were mentioned. It was all done on the radio, the same 16 megacycles that's mentioned in the letter. To the Deuxième Communications section. Mathis accepted on the off-chance. They did a neat job. Mathis paid up--a suitcase full of money left at a Michelin road sign on N1. But no one can tie them in with these SPECTRE people. When we and the Americans dealt, there were endless cutouts, really professional ones, and anyway we were more interested in the end product than the people involved. We both paid a lot of money, but it was worth it. If it's the same group working this, they're a serious outfit and I've told the P.M. so. But that's not the point. The plane is missing and the two bombs, just as the letter says. All details exactly correct. The Vindicator was on a NATO training flight south of Ireland and out into the Atlantic.'' M reached for a bulky folder and turned over some pages. He found what he wanted. "Yes, it was to be a six-hour flight leaving Boscombe Down at eight p.m. and due back at two a.m. There was an R.A.F. crew of five and a NATO observer, an Italian, man called Petacchi, Giuseppi Petacchi, squadron leader in the Italian Air Force, seconded to NATO. Fine flyer, apparently, but they're checking on his background now. He was sent over here on a normal tour of duty. The top pilots from NATO have been coming over for months to get used to the Vindicator and the bomb-release routines. This plane's apparently going to be used for the NATO long-range striking force. Anyway''--M turned over a page--"the plane was watched on the screen as usual and all went well until it was west of Ireland at about forty thousand feet. Then, contrary to the drill, it came down to around thirty thousand and got lost in the transatlantic air traffic. Bomber Command tried to get in touch, but the radio couldn't or wouldn't answer. The immediate reaction was that the Vindicator had hit one of the transatlantic planes and there was something of a panic. But none of the companies reported any trouble or even a sighting.'' M looked across at Bond. "And that was the end of it. The plane just vanished.''

Bond said, "Did the American DEW line pick it up--their Defense Early Warning system?''

"There's a query on that. The only grain of evidence we've got. Ap'' parently about five hundred miles east of Boston there was some evidence that a plane had peeled off the inward route to Idlewild and turned south. But that's another big traffic lane--for the northern traffic from Montreal and Gander down to Bermuda and the Bahamas and South America. So these DEW operators just put it down as a B.O.A.C. or Trans-Canada plane.'' "It certainly sounds as if they've got the whole thing worked out pretty well, hiding in these traffic lanes. Could the plane have turned northwards in the middle of the Atlantic and made for Russia?''

"Yes, or southwards. There's a big block of space about five hundred miles out from both shores that's out of radar range. Better still, it could have turned on its tracks and come back in to Europe on any of two or three air lanes. In fact it could be almost anywhere in the world by now. That's the point.''

"But it's a huge plane. It must need special runways and so on. It must have come down somewhere. You can't hide a plane of that size.''

"Just so. All these things are obvious. By midnight last night the R.A.F. had checked with every single airport, every one in the world that could have taken it. Negative. But the C.A.S. says of course it could be crash-landed in the Sahara, for instance, or on some other desert, or in the sea, in shallow water.''

"Wouldn't that explode the bombs?''

"No. They're absolutely safe until they're armed. Apparently even a direct drop, like that one from the B-47 over North Carolina in 1958, would only explode the T.N.T. trigger to the thing. Not the plutonium.''

"How are these SPECTRE people going to explode them, then?''

M spread his hands. "They explained all this at the War Cabinet meeting. I don't understand it all, but apparently an atomic bomb looks just like any other bomb. The way it works is that the nose is full of ordinary T.N.T. with the plutonium in the tail. Between the two there's a hole into which you screw some sort of a detonator, a kind of plug. When the bomb hits, the T.N.T. ignites the detonator and the detonator sets off the plutonium.''

"So these people would have to drop the bomb to set it off?'' Apparently not. They would need a man with good physics knowledge who understood the thing, but then all he'd have to do would be to unscrew the nose cone on the bomb--the ordinary detonator that sets off the T.N.T.--and fix on some kind of time fuse that would ignite the T.N.T. without it being dropped. That would set the thing off. And it's not a very bulky affair. You could get the whole thing into something only about twice the size of a big golf bag. Very heavy, of course. But you could put it into the back of a big car, for instance, and just run the car into a town and leave it parked with the time fuse switched on. Give yourself a couple of hours' start to get out of range--at least a hundred miles away--and that would be that.''

Bond reached in his pocket for another cigarette. It couldn't be, yet it was so. Just what his Service and all the other intelligence services in the world had been expecting to happen. The anonymous little man in the raincoat with a heavy suitcase--or golf bag, if you like. The left luggage office, the parked car, the clump of bushes in a park in the center of a big town. And there was no answer to it. In a few years' time, if the experts were right, there would be even less answer to it. Every tin-pot little nation would be making atomic bombs in their backyards, so to speak. Apparently there was no secret now about the things. It had only been the prototypes that had been difficult--like the first gunpowder weapons for instance, or machine guns or tanks. Today these were everybody's bows and arrows. Tomorrow, or the day after, the bows and arrows would be atomic bombs. And this was the first blackmail case. Unless SPECTRE was stopped, the word would get round and soon every criminal scientist with a chemical set and some scrap iron would be doing it. If they couldn't be stopped in time there would be nothing for it but to pay up. Bond said so.

"That's about it,'' commented M. "From every point of view, including politics, not that they matter all that much. But neither the P.M. nor the President would last five minutes if anything went wrong. But whether we pay or don't pay, the consequences will be endless--and all bad. That's why absolutely everything has got to be done to find these people and the plane and stop the thing in time. The P.M. and the President are entirely agreed. Every intelligence man all over the world who's on our side is being put on to this operation--Operation Thunderball they're calling it. Planes, ships, submarines--and of course money's no object. We can have everything, whenever we want it. The Cabinet have already set up a special staff and a war room. Every scrap of information will be fed into it. The Americans have done the same. Some kind of a leak can't be helped. It's being put about that all the panic, and it is panic, is because of the loss of the Vindicator--bombs included, whatever fuss that may cause politically. Only the letter will be absolutely secret. All the usual detective work--fingerprints, Brighton, writing paper--these'll be looked after by Scotland Yard with the F.B.I., Interpol, and all the NATO intelligence organizations, helping where they can. Only a segment of the paper and the typing will be used--a few innocent words. This will all be quite separate from the search for the plane. That'll be handled as a top espionage matter. No one should be able to connect the two investigations. M.I.5 will handle the background to all the crew members and the Italian observer. That will be a natural part of the search for the plane. As for the Service, we've teamed up with the C.I.A. to cover the world. Alien Dulles is putting every man he's got onto it and so am I. Just sent out a General Call. Now all we can do is sit back and wait.''

Bond lit another cigarette, his sinful third in one hour. He said, putting unconcern into his voice, "Where do I come in, sir?''

M looked vaguely at Bond, as if seeing him for the first time. Then he swiveled his chair and gazed again through the window at nothing. finally he said, in a conversational tone of voice, "I have committed a breach of faith with the P.M. in telling you all this, 007. I was under oath to tell no one what I have just told you. I decided to do what I have done because I have an idea, a hunch, and I wish this idea to be pursued by a''--he hesitated--"by a reliable man. It seemed to me that the only grain of possible evidence in this case was the DEW radar plot, a doubtful one I admit, of the plane that left the east-west air channel over the Atlantic and turned south towards Bermuda and the Bahamas. I decided to accept this evidence, although it has not aroused much interest elsewhere. I then spent some time studying a map and charts of the Western Atlantic and I endeavored to put myself in the minds of SPECTRE--or rather, for there is certainly a master mind behind all this, in the mind of the chief of SPECTRE: my opposite number, so to speak. And I came to certain conclusions. I decided that a favorable target for Bomb. No. 1, and for Bomb No. 2, if it comes to that, would be in America rather than in Europe. To begin with, the Americans are more bomb-conscious than we in Europe and therefore more susceptible to persuasion if it came to using Bomb No. 2. Installations worth more than £100,000,000, and thus targets for Bomb No. 1, are more numerous in America than in Europe, and finally, guessing that SPECTRE is a European organization, from the style of the letter and from the paper, which is Dutch by the way, and also from the ruthlessness of the plot, it seemed to me at least possible that an Amerrican rather than a European target might have been chosen. Anyway, going on these assumptions, and assuming that the plane could not nave landed in America itself or off American shores--the coastal radar network is too good--I looked for a neighboring area which might be suitable. And''--M glanced round at Bond and away again--"I decided on the Bahamas, the group of islands, many of them uninhabited, surrounded mostly by shoal water over sand and possessing only one simple radar station--and that one concerned only with civilian air traffic and manned by local civilian personnel. South, towards Cuba, Jamaica, and the Caribbean, offers no worthwhile targets. Anyway it is too far from the American coastline. Northwards towards Bermuda has the same disadvantages. But the nearest of the Bahama group is only two hundred miles--only six or seven hours in a fast motorboat or yacht--from the American coastline.''

Bond interrupted. "If you're right, sir, why didn't SPECTRE send their letter to the President instead of the P.M.?''

"For the sake of obscurity. To make us do what we are doing--hunting all round the world instead of only in one part of it. And for maximum impact. SPECTRE would realize that the arrival of the letter right on top of the loss of the bomber would hit us in the solar plexus. It might, they would reason, even shake the money out of us without any further effort. The next stage of their operation, attacking target No. 1, is going to be a nasty business for them. It's going to expose their whereabouts to a considerable extent. They'd like to collect the money and close the operation as quickly as possible. That's what we've got to gamble on. We've got to push them as close to the use of No. 1 bomb as we dare in the hope that something will betray them in the next six and three-quarter days. It's a slim chance. I'm pinning my hopes on my guess''--M swung his chair round to the desk--"and on you. Well?'' He looked hard at Bond. "Any comments? If not, you'd better get started. You're booked on all New York planes from now until midnight. Then on by B.O.A.C. I thought of. using an R.A.F. Canberra, but I don't want your arrival to make any noise. You're a rich young man looking for some property in the islands. That'll give you an excuse to do as much prospecting as you want. Well?''

"All right, sir.'' Bond got to his feet. "I'd rather have had somewhere more interesting--the Iron Curtain beat, for instance. I can't help feeling this is a bigger operation than a small unit could take on. For my money this looks more like a Russian job. They get the experimental plane and the bombs--they obviously want them--and throw dust in our eyes with all this SPECTRE ballyhoo. If SMERSH was still in business, I'd say they'd got a finger in it somewhere. Just their style. But the Eastern Stations may pick up something on that if there's anything in the idea. Anything else, sir? Who do I cooperate with in Nassau?''

"The Governor knows you're coming. They've got a well-trained police force. C.I.A. are sending down a good man, I gather. With a communications outfit. They've got more of that sort of machinery than we have. Take a cipher machine with the Triple X setting. I want to hear every single detail you turn up. Personal to me. Right?''

"Right, sir.'' Bond went to the door and let himself out. There was nothing more to be said. This looked like the biggest job the Service had ever been given, and in Bond's opinion, for he didn't give much for M's guess, he had been relegated to the back row of the chorus. So be it. He would get himself a good sunburn and watch the show from the wings.

When Bond walked out of the building, carrying the neat leather cipher case, an expensive movie camera perhaps, slung over his shoulder, the man in the beige Volkswagen stopped scratching the burn-scab under his shirt, loosened, for the tenth time, the long-barrelled.45 in the holster under his arm, started the car, and put it in gear. He was twenty yards behind Bond's parked Bentley. He had no idea what the big building was. He had simply obtained Bond's home address from the receptionist at Shrublands and, as soon as he got out of the Brighton hospital, he had carefully tailed Bond. The car was hired, under an assumed name. When he had done what had to be done he would go straight to London Airport and take the first plane out to any country on the Continent. Count Lippe was a sanguine individual. The job, the private score he had to settle, presented no problem to him. He was a ruthless, vengeful man and he had eliminated many obstreperous and perhaps dangerous people in his life. He reasoned that, if they every came to hear of this, SPECTRE would not object. The overheard telephone conversation on that first day at the clinic showed that his cover had been broached, however slightly, and it was just conceivable that he could be traced through his membership in the Red Lightning Tong, From there to SPECTRE was a long step, but Sub-operator G knew that once a cover began to run, it ran like an old sock. Apart from that, this man must be paid off. Count Lippe had to be quits with him.