Raymond Benson - The World Is Not Enough

Ian Fleming's

JAMES BOND

in

The World is not Enough

Raymond Benson

Story by Neil Purvis & Robert Wade

Screenplay by Neil Purvis & Robert Wade and Bruce Feirstein

The author wishes to thank the following individuals for their help in preparing this book

Bruce Feirstein

Peter Lamont

James McMahon

Mona Re Robertson

01 - Errand Boy

As he rode in the taxi from Bilbao’s airport, James Bond’s recollection of M’s orders was clear enough. Bring back Sir Robert's money.

Nevertheless, Bond had a secondary objective in mind, and one that might prove to be slightly more of a risk. Initially, he had bristled at the notion of being a messenger boy for a wealthy oil tycoon, even if the man was a fellow Briton. He had to make sure that Sir Robert received a refund for a bad purchase he had made on the black market. Bond normally considered this kind of assignment a waste of time for someone in the Double-0 Section, but then he thought about how the job presented another, more appealing, opportunity.

Fine, he thought. He would get the money back - that was not a problem. But it was more important to avenge the death of a fellow agent.

0012 had been a recent recruit to SIS, and Bond had barely known him. Yet, when a fellow agent was murdered in the field, the entire Double-0 Section took it personally. It was like losing a member of the family. Even though M had warned Bond that entertaining notions of a vendetta might cloud his judgement on this particular assignment, 007 felt that it was his duty to even the score if he could.

It had begun yesterday with a summons from his chief. Bond had welcomed the interruption from the pile of

intelligence reports he routinely absorbed in between assignments. Hoping that he was to be sent across the world on a potentially interesting case or indeed anything that would get him out of London, Bond had taken the lift to M’s office in the SIS building on the Thames. Miss Moneypenny had offered no hint as to what the assignment was to be, except that she was arranging for him to fly to Spain.

M was busy with a document on her desk when he walked in.

‘Sit down, Double-0 Seven,’ she said without looking up.

Over the past few years Bond had strengthened his relationship with his relatively new boss at SIS. The new M had earned Bond’s respect and loyalty. He liked to think he had earned hers.

However, when she said, ‘Sir Robert King needs an errand boy, and you’re he,’ Bond blinked.

‘Ma’am?’ Bond wasn’t sure that he had heard her correctly. ‘The oil tycoon?'

‘That’s right. He needs you to go to Bilbao tomorrow to pick up a case full of money from a Swiss bank there. It’s a refund for a secret report he bought on the black market. The document wasn’t what he had been led to believe it was. He complained. The sellers agreed to a refund in good faith. An intermediary has requested that MI6 send someone to pick it up. I’d like you to do it, Double-0 Seven.’

Bond frowned. He was not a person who kept up with the lives of Britain’s rich and famous, but he knew enough about Sir Robert King to know that he was certainly high on the list of UK VIPs.

‘Besides,’ M continued, ‘it would be a personal favour for me. Sir Robert is an old friend’

Bond was not surprised. M had friends in powerful places. She had come to SIS well connected and was able to play the politicians with more finesse than her predecessor ever cared to do. Even though she was the head of SIS, M was not averse

to socialising with Britain's elite. In this day and age it was probably wise intelligence policy.

Bond silently reviewed what he knew about the man. Sir Robert King, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of King Industries Plc., had made a fortune over a quarter of a century ago from a lucrative construction business inherited from his father. When King married his second wife, whose family owned the remnants of a mismanaged oil importing firm, he slowly moved King Industries’ interests toward petroleum production, following the tragic death of his wife, King spent the next ten years saving the company’s assets and tripled his income, as well as Britain’s own oil supplies. He had become a national hero of sorts and had been knighted. Since that time King Industries had become a major player in a worldwide, competitive business. King was always popping up in the British press. Bond’s impression of him was that he was something of a charming rogue who enjoyed the life of a very rich, elderly playboy. Bond had never met the man, nor did he wish to.

And then there was the daughter . . .

‘What ever happened with the Elektra King kidnapping case?’ Bond asked. ‘It isn’t talked about much these days, is it?' M looked at Bond with steel in her eyes. ‘That’s completely irrelevant to your assignment, Double-0 Seven.’

Bond blinked again. Had he touched some kind of nerve? It had happened a little over a year ago. Elektra King, Sir Robert’s glamorous daughter, a girl in her late twenties, had been kidnapped and held for ransom. At the time Bond had been out of the country on assignment. He didn’t know much about the case; only that Miss King had been held for two or three weeks, and then had miraculously escaped on her own. Most of her captors were killed. He remembered that it had been reported in the British press and on the BBC, but the coverage disappeared from the news surprisingly fast considering the victim involved.

‘I like to know all the facts before I walk into something, especially if it happens to be a Swiss bank,’ he said.

M was not amused. ‘MI5 took over the kidnapping case as it occurred in this country. We have never had anything to do with it,’ M said. ‘As for the press, perhaps for once they respected the family’s wishes not to be bothered about a painful and traumatic event. Thank God they left the poor girl alone after her ordeal. But never mind that. We are connected to this report Sir Robert bought. It was one of Double-0 Twelve’s possessions. The report was stolen from his office when he was killed.’

‘Really?’ Bond asked, interested now. News of 0012’s murder in Omsk had sent a shockwave throughout the department. One of the few Double-0 agents who was permanently stationed abroad, 0012 was found shot dead in the Russian station a month ago. The office had been ransacked and all classified material taken.

‘I don't want you to go entertaining notions of a vendetta, Double-0 Seven,’ M warned. ‘It can cloud your judgement. Double-0 Twelve’s murder is being investigated. Your assignment is to bring back Sir Robert’s money.’

With that she had dismissed him. Moneypenny provided him with his ticket, travel details and the contact at the bank, a man named Lachaise. Before leaving the building, Bond visited Q Branch to pick up something he knew might be useful.

He had flown on Iberia Airlines to Bilbao the next morning, and now he was being whisked by taxi into the capital of Vizcaya province in northern Spain. The city’s outskirts, near the airport, were a hub of maritime commerce and heavy industry. Bond was driven to the Casco Viejo, the nerve centre that is bundled up on the right bank of the Ria de Bilbao, where he could see the municipality’s characteristics change to a metropolitan cluster of banks and modem office buildings. During the day the city retained a business-like and somewhat elegant ambience, not unlike that of some French provincial capitals. All that disappeared after sundown, for Bond could attest to the celebrated Spanish love for rowdy night-long revelry in this particular city. He once had a memorable evening (and morning) with a fiery senorita in Bilbao. A flamenco dancer by profession, she had used what he could only best describe as ‘rhythmic charms’ to demonstrate that Latin lovers really are warm-blooded.