Raymond Benson - The World Is Not Enough

The disabled Parahawk was out of control. It wobbled in the air precariously, sailing with great speed right into . . . the other Parahawk. The two vehicles bunt into flames, sending a thunderclap in all directions.

Bond slowed to a stop and caught his breath. That had been much too close. Where was Elektra? Had she made it through that gully safe and sound? And where the hell were her bodyguards? They were supposed to have been keeping watch.

Elektra found him before he could move. She glided to him from the ice bridge and stopped at his side. Another explosion from the burning Parahawks rocked the ground. She fell into his arms, and surprisingly allowed him to protect her.

‘Are they gone? All of them?’ she asked, quite frightened. The earlier bravado was missing.

‘I think so,’ he said.

‘I couldn’t wait for you up there. I decided to come downhill and catch up with you at the bottom.’

‘It was probably a good thing that you did, otherwise I might never had found you,’ he said. ‘All I need is to get lost in the Caucasus Mountains’

He looked down and saw that a small piece of parachute fabric was impaled on his right ski. There was some kind of pattern on it. He reached down and slid the fabric off, then frowned when he saw the Russian letters sewn onto the cloth: the symbol of the Russian Atomic Energy Department.

Bond stuffed the Russian-made piece of parachute into his pocket just as they heard a low rumbling around them.

‘What was that?’ she asked.

The noise grew louder. Bond looked up the hill and saw that the exploding Parahawks had triggered a collapse of the overhanging snow. A huge, white wall was tumbling toward them.

‘Come on!’ he cried. He was ready to keep skiing, for the best strategy to avoid an oncoming avalanche is to point one’s skis downhill and out-race it.

Elektra, however, lost her balance and fell. Bond stopped and threw his body on top of hers.

‘Curl up into a ball!’ he shouted. It was the only possible defence. If the hands were near the feet, a person could unlock the boots, slowly unfold and burrow oneself out of the snow.

The avalanche hit them hard just as Bond pulled the toggle on his Q jacket. The air bag slammed open, forming a cushion between them and the snow. The cold weight engulfed their bodies, and for a moment everything went dark. She screamed and started to panic. Bond held her tightly, forcing her to stay still.

‘It’s all right . . . sshhh . . .’ he whispered to her. Finally, after what seemed to be an eternity, everything went dead. There was some illumination from Bond's watch. He unlocked the toe-holds and pushed his skis away, trying to straighten himself. He was able to grab the Sykes-hairbaim throwing knife from the sheath on his calf, then reach around and puncture the air bag. Once it had deflated, they were left inside a small, igloo-like, icy tomb. But they were safe.

‘My God, we’ve been buried alive,’ she gasped.

‘We’re all right,’ he said.

She started to panic again. ‘I can’t stay here.’

‘You’re not going to.’ He used the knife to start chipping away at the snow above them.

‘No! It will cave in!’

‘It’s the only way out . .

‘Oh God, oh God,’ she cried. She started breathing rapidly, hyperventilating. It was obvious that she suffered from claustrophobia.

‘Hold on, Elektra, I’ll get us out,’ he said, working feverishly with the knife.

‘I can't breathe ... I can’t breathe . . .’ she choked.

Bond stopped and grabbed her.

‘Elektra! Look at me!’ She struggled against him. ‘Look in my eyes!’ She continued to beat at him until he slapped her lightly on the cheek. She stopped and gasped a lungful of air.

‘You’re all right,’ he said gently. ‘Everything will be all right. Trust me.’

Finally, arrested by the strength in his eyes and the shock of the blow, Elektra calmed down and nodded. He continued to chip away.

Bond now understood the girl better. The kidnapping ordeal had been much harder on Elektra than she liked to admit to herself, he thought. She was on the right track. Given her situation, the best thing would be to do everything within one’s power to put the experience in the past and move forward. Immerse oneself in work. She had done that, but the scars that remained were the hidden wounds to her psyche. Bond presumed that Elektra probably developed the claustrophobia within the past year. He began to appreciate the amount of stress she was under. Not enough time had passed since the kidnapping, her father was recently murdered and she had to take charge ... It was no wonder that she seemed to be walking a fine line between composure and sheer panic. M had been right to send him out to protect her. He resolved to be doubly careful not to let her know that Renard was still after her.

Six minutes later, Bond’s fist broke through the mound that covered them. He enlarged the hole with his arms and pulled himself up and out. He then readied down and helped Elektra.

As if on cue, the Dauphin appeared overhead.

‘It’s Sasha!’ she cried, waving.

With rescue imminent, it appeared that the ordeal was over. Elektra smoothly resumed the persona of a woman in charge. The cowering, frightened figure from before had disappeared. She immediately began to babble about the survey markers and how she needed to get on to someone about moving some of them.

She was extraordinary. He admired her will to overcome her problems.

The helicopter circled around and found a clear area. Sasha dropped a rope ladder, and they trudged through the snow toward it. Neither of them seemed any the worse for wear, but Bond knew that something had happened between them. She had changed. Elektra had shown him her vulnerable side and let down her tough, authoritative exterior.

And he found her damnably attractive.

She had let him see through the facade. Would this make his assignment easier ... or all the more difficult?

06 - Baku

The major petroleum sources of Azerbaijan are located in the eastern and southeastern regions of the country, near the capital city of Baku, in the Caspian Sea, close to the border with Iran. Not long after Azerbaijan’s formal independence was declared, the country’s government signed a production-sharing contract with a consortium of eleven international oil companies for the development of several deep water oil fields in the Caspian. The deal provided the struggling country with much needed capital to finance an infrastructure which was, at best, tentative.

Freedom from Soviet control had promised a brighter future for the former republics in the region, including Georgia and Armenia, but violent conflict between various ethnic groups stifled progress. Foreign investment in anything other than oil was not forthcoming. Nevertheless, Baku became a major cultural and educational centre on its own. The largest city in the region, with a population of over a million people, was bolstered by the rapid growth of the petroleum industry. The influx of money in the area also brought free enterprise in the form of organised crime. SIS had known for some time that the so-called Russian Mafia were operating out of Baku. In many ways, the city is to southwestern Asia what Tangier was to the Mediterranean during World War II. In just a few years, it had become a

haven for spies, drug smugglers, arms dealers and other forms of low-life.

This didn’t stop Sir Robert King from developing his interests in the Caspian Sea. King Industries moved in shortly after the country gained its independence, and the company was surprisingly successful at locating and finding the richest oil fields. King built an ornate villa on the shore of the sea, some twenty miles south of Baku, where he and his family could stay when they were in the country.