John Gardner: Nobody Lives for Ever

‘Just one moment, sir.’ The maître d’ disappeared into the restaurant and they could see him in agitated conversation with one of the waiters. Finally he came out, smiling. ‘You’re lucky, sir. We’ve had an unexpected cancellation . . .’

‘Not lucky,’ Bond said with his jaw clenched. ‘We had a table reserved. You’re simply giving us our table.’

‘Of course, sir.’

They were shown to a corner table in a pleasant white room. Bond took a seat with his back to the wall and a good view of the entrance. The tablecloths were paper, and there were packets of crayons beside each plate. Bond doodled, drawing a skull and crossbones. Nannie had sketched something vaguely obscene, in red. She leaned forward.

‘I haven’t spotted anyone. Are we being watched?’

‘Oh yes,’ Bond said with a knowing smile as he opened the large menu. ‘Two of them, working each side of the street. Possibly three. Did you notice the man in a yellow shirt and jeans, tall, black and with a lot of rings on his fingers? The other’s a little chap, dark trousers, white shirt, with a tattoo on his left arm – mermaid being indecent with a swordfish, by the look of it. He’s across the street now.’

‘Got ‘em,’ Nannie said as she turned to her menu.

‘Where’s the third?’ asked Sukie.

‘An old blue Buick. Big fellow at the wheel, alone and cruising. Not easy to tell, but he’s been up and down the street a lot. So have others, but he was the only one who didn’t seem to take any interest in people on the sidewalks. I’d say he was the backup. Watch out for them.’

A waiter appeared and took their order. They all chose Conch chowder, the Thai beef salad and, inevitably, Key lime pie. They drank a Californian champagne, which slightly offended Bond’s palate. They talked constantly, keeping off their plans for the night.

When they were out on the street again, Bond told them to be wary.

‘I want you both there, on board and with nobody on your backs, by one o’clock.’

As they walked west towards the Front Street intersection, the man in the yellow shirt kept well back on the other side of the street. The tattooed man let them pass him, then overtook them and let them pass again before they got back to the Pier House. The blue Buick had cruised by twice, and was parked outside the Lobster House, almost opposite the main entrance to the hotel.

‘They have us well staked out,’ Bond murmured as they crossed the street and walked up the drive to the main entrance. There they made a great show of saying goodnight.

Bond was taking no chances. As soon as he got to his room he checked the old, well-tried traps he had laid. The slivers of matchstick were still wedged into the doors of the clothes cupboards and the threads on the drawers were unbroken. His luggage was also intact. It was ten-thirty, time to move. He doubted if SPECTRE’S surveillance team would expect anyone to make a move before the early hours. He had not let the others know that he had slipped the spare charts from Prospero inside his jacket before they left the boat that afternoon. Now he spread them out on the round glass table in the centre of his sitting room and began to study the course from Garrison Bight to Shark Island, making notes. When he was satisfied that he had all the compass bearings correct, and a very good idea of how he could guide a boat to within safe distance of the island, Bond began to dress for action.

He peeled off the T-shirt and wriggled into a light black cotton rollneck from his case. The jeans were replaced by a pair of black slacks, which he always packed. Next, he took out the wide belt which had been so useful when Der Haken had him locked up in Salzburg. He removed the Q Branch Toolkit and spread the contents out on the table. He checked the small explosive charges and their electronic connectors, adding from the false bottom of his second briefcase four small flat packets of plastique explosive, each no larger than a stick of chewing gum. Into the inner pockets of the belt he fitted four small lengths of fuse, some extra thin electric wire, half a dozen tiny detonators, a miniature pin-light torch, not much larger than the filter of a cigarette – and one other very important item.

Together the explosives would not dispose of an entire building, but they could be useful with locks or door hinges. He buckled on the belt, threading it through the loops on his trousers, then opened up the shoulder bag which contained the wet suit and snorkelling equipment. Sweating a little, he struggled into the wet suit and clipped the knife into place on the belt. The ASP, two spare magazines, the charts and the baton he put into the waterproof pouch threaded on to the belt. He carried the flippers, mask, underwater torch and snorkel in the shoulder bag.

Leaving the suite, he kept inside the hotel for as long as possible. There was still a great deal of noise coming from the bars, restaurant and makeshift dance floor and he finally emerged through an exit on the ocean side of the festivities.

Squatting down with his back against the wall, Bond unzipped the shoulder bag and pulled on the flippers, then slowly edged himself towards the water. The music and laughter were loud behind him as he climbed over the short stretch of rock marking the right-hand boundary of the hotel bathing area. He washed the mask out, slipped it on and adjusted the snorkel. Grasping the torch, he slid straight down into the water. He swam gently round the metal shark guard which protected swimmers using the hotel beach. It took about ten minutes to find the thick wooden piles under the Havana Docks bar deck, but he surfaced only a couple of metres from the moored motor boat.

Any sound he made clambering aboard would not have been heard above the noise coming from the hotel, and once inside the neat little craft, he could quickly check the fuel gauges with the pin-light torch. The beach staff were efficient and the tank had been filled, presumably ready for the next morning’s work.

He cast off using his hands to manoeuvre the speed boat from under the pier. He then allowed it to drift, occasionally guiding it with the flat of his hand in the water, heading north, into the Gulf of Mexico, silently passing the Standard Oil pier.

The boat was about a kilometre and a half out when Bond switched on the riding lights. He moved aft to prime and start the motor. It fired at the first pull, and he had to scramble quickly forward and swing himself behind the wheel, one hand on the throttle. He opened up, glancing down at the small luminous dial on the compass, and silently thanked the Pier House for the care they took in keeping the boat in order.

Minutes later, he was cruising carefully along the coast, fumbling with the pouch to pull out the charts and take his first visual fix. He could not risk running the speed boat at anywhere approaching its full speed. The night was clear, and the moon was up, but Bond still had to peer into the dark water ahead. He spotted the exit point from Garrison Bight and began negotiating the tricky sandbars, cruising slowly, occasionally feeling the shallow draught of the boat touch the sand. Twenty minutes later he cleared the reef and set course for Shark Island.

Ten minutes passed, then another ten, before he caught a glimpse of lights. Soon afterwards he cut the engine and drifted in towards shore. The long dark slice of land stood out against the horizon, twinkling with lights from buildings set among trees. He leaned over, washed out his mask again, took up the torch, and, for the second time that night, dropped into the sea.

He remained on the surface for a while, judging that he was a couple of kilometres offshore. Then he heard the drumming of engines and saw a small craft rounding the island to his left, searching the waters with a powerful spotlight. Tamil Rahani’s regular patrol, he thought. There would be at least two boats like this keeping a constant vigil. He took in air and dived, swimming steadily but conserving energy against any emergency.