John Gardner - Seafire

"Sir Max, if I could…?" from Rexinus.

"Dr. Rex, please shut your mouth. I've spent a fortune on you and your friends. You said it would take a year. You've had your year and now it's payback time. The demonstration we promised ourselves will happen tomorrow night, and it's going to be quite something."

"But, Sir Max, I have to tell you…"

"You don't have to tell me anything, Rex. It's time for me to tell you. I'm here to give you a briefing. Operation SeaFire. Has a nice ring to it, eh?"

Rexinus seemed to have given up, but Anton Fritz's voice came piping with "I don't think you quite understand, sir. What Rex is trying to say is that the AAOPS isn't quite -"

"Please, no excuses and no explanations. We run a public demonstration of the AAOPS tomorrow night. If you have final touches to perfect, then you'll just have to work at them in the next twenty-four hours." Pause. "Actually a shade less than twenty-four hours."

Through the door, Max Tarn's voice sounded even silkier than it had when Bond last heard him – silkier and, somewhere mixed in with the silk, a rough undertow as though the smoothness was slowly being ripped apart. Sir Max Tarn had reached some terrible pinnacle from which he could only fall. It was the voice of a person utterly unbalanced. A man who believed himself invincible, safe from anything, even death.

Vesta Motley also tried. "Sir Max, there is a problem. We -"

"There is no problem as far as I'm concerned, Ms. Motley. It's taken a long while to set this up. We go ahead tomorrow night. Now, if you'll all cease talking and be quiet, I'll give you the briefing."

Barking mad, Bond thought. Just as he had predicted. Tarn probably already knew what they were trying to tell him, but was going ahead whatever the outcome.

He was speaking again. "The oil company, MetroTex, has one of their supertankers coming into this harbor at precisely eight o'clock tomorrow night. It is a huge affair and will be fully loaded. Thousands upon thousands of gallons of oil and gasoline. The name of that enormous ship is Golden Bough , and she's a regular visitor to these shores, so her timing is like clockwork.

"What Golden Bough contains will make this rich harbor golden, all right. Golden with fire and flames. The amusing thing is that there's already a precedent for what will happen, because in the late sixteenth century no less a sailor than Sir Frances Drake set fire to every ship in this harbor."

"Which lit the way to his defeat," said Leiter.

Tarn did not even pause. "Your job, Dr. Rexinus, will be to dash in and let the world see that an oil spill of this magnitude can be contained. It will be your triumph. More importantly, it will be my triumph. The demonstration has to be big. It has to be impressive, for if it is not contained then this entire island will be surrounded by an oil slick which will make any other disaster of this kind look insignificant. Every other major oil spill the world has seen will be as small as scum on bathwater."

There came the noise of what would normally be a slow handclap, only this sounded like a hand being slapped onto leather. Felix was pushing his luck.

"What the devil does that mean, Mr. Leiter?"

"Simply applauding. I'm all in favor of spectacles, and if Golden Bough is as big as I think she is, you'll do more than light up the harbor here and run oil around the coastline. It could drift a long way. We're talking about almost total pollution of the Caribbean."

"You're not taking Dr. Rexinus into account, Mr. Leiter. He and his companions are wonder workers. With the flick of a switch they can pour trouble on oiled waters. I've put several million into a brilliant idea, so tomorrow night we see if I've wasted my money or not."

"How're you going to set Golden Bough ablaze? You got some special kindling to do that?"

Tarn gave a small bark of a laugh. "Yes. Yes, good. Kindling. Yes, I do have special kindling in the form of a somewhat ancient Russian submarine. She's old, rusty, noisy, I think a little leaky also, but I've put money into her as well."

"A submarine?" Rexinus's voice quavered.

"And torpedoes – two of them. Should have been three, but one was wasted. At least we know it works. I had a slight problem with the captain. He's a Scottish gentleman and I fear he bends his elbow a shade too much. On a trial run earlier this year he actually targeted one of my own cruise liners. He tells me that he didn't know the torpedo tubes were loaded, or whatever the expression is. My ship escaped with a little damage and no loss of life. In other circumstances I might have fired the man – preferably from one of his own torpedo tubes – but I think we can trust him to do the job thoroughly this time, can't we, Maurice?"

Goodwin grunted, and Tarn repeated, "Maurice?"

"Yes, Max, we can trust him now. I don't relish the job, but I'll be with him to make certain he doesn't go astray."

Tarn sighed. "It's a terrible thing when a man has to put his own watchdogs onto people he pays to do specialist jobs – pays handsomely, as well. I really wonder what the world's coming to."

"You're going to watch the display from here, then?" Felix was feeding him questions that might help Flicka and Bond.

"Not quite from here, Mr. Leiter. I prefer a grandstand view. I shall watch it all from the top of that grand old fortress they call El Morro. If you behave yourself, I might even let you come with me. No. No, I don't think that's a good idea. I'll leave you to the interesting charms of one of my other girls. You think Beth would like to play with this one, Anna?"

Anna gave a sound that lay somewhere between a cough and a laugh. "Beth would love to play with him. Probably remove his false arm and leg first. She likes pulling the wings off flies." There was something disgustingly sinister in the way she said it, and Bond reached for his weapon, turning as though to put his shoulder to the door, but Flicka caught his arm and shook her head silently.

He knew she was right. It was his old trouble, guilt from the past about Felix. Now he had put his friend in danger again. He looked down at Flicka, gave a sad little smile, nodded, and relaxed.

There was rustling from the main cabin. "This chart," Tarn said. "Heed me, Dr. Rexinus, you're going to have to follow my instructions to the letter. You will leave this berth at seven o'clock tomorrow night. On the dot of seven, so that you will reach here." He was obviously showing Rexinus a point on the chart, and aloud he gave a latitude and longitude. "This will bring you to within one nautical mile of the initial explosion. As soon as the fire begins to spread, you will take Mare Nostrum straight towards the outer edges of the flames and begin to operate the AAOPS. If I recall our previous conversations correctly, you will be able to move quite close to the center of both the fire and oil spill. Did you not explain that to me when we finalized our agreement?"

"Yes, that's what I said." Rexinus sounded resigned. "I think we'll take her for a run out tomorrow morning, just to go through the drill."

Good, Bond considered, he's going to make a dash for it.

"Why not do that, Rex? I didn't tell you that there'll be an extra hand on board. Well, he's one man, but he carries a great deal of weight. He's up on the deck at the moment. My man Connie Spicer. Martial arts expert, crack shot, carries all kinds of lethal things with him."

"We can always do with another pair of hands." Rexinus's voice betrayed his disappointment, and Bond mouthed a Damn . With Connie left on board, there was little chance of the three gullible scientists overpowering him. Come to that, if Connie stayed on the craft now, there might be difficulties in getting ashore themselves. He looked back along the passageway. There were cabin doors to left and right, and, at the far end, the passage seemed to connect with another, running across the breadth of the laboratory ship. A third door was visible. Three night cabins. If the craft had been properly designed, there had to be a way up to the main deck somewhere for'ard.