John Gardner - Win, Lose Or Die

So, at ten-thirty on the dot Bond met the two American officers Mac and Walter - and the man from his own Service, Draycott, who was not quite what he expected.

The debrief was exceptionally thorough. Much more so than he had anticipated. Walter was elderly, but had the knack of slipping off into tributary questions which suddenly ended up becoming very searching. Mac, who was, as Toby had suggested, “built like a fire-plug”, had one of those faces that remained permanently impassive.

Though he did smile a great deal, the face and eyes remained blank, and rather tough: impossible to read. Mac was inclined to chip in with subsidiary questions which turned out to add a lot to Bond’s testimony.

Draycott was also deceptive, in the mould of the legendary Scardon: a man who looked very ordinary, as though he would be happier in the English countryside. He smoked a pipe, used to great effect - to add in pauses when he fiddled with it, or to break questions in two halves when he smoked.

They took Bond back to the beginning, telling him the stalking-horse theory of the operation,just so that he would know they were pretty well-briefed themselves. On the fifth day, the trio walked off with practically every second Bond had spent in Ischia accounted for: naughties and all.

When the debrief was complete all three of his interrogators seemed to vanish. At least Bond did not set eyes on them again.

On December 31st, Clover came to his quarters to announce that she was leaving. He did not keep her long, though she obviously wanted to linger. “See you on board, then,” was his final, sharp word, and he thought Clover’s eyes were moist. She was either very much for real, or had become one hell of an actor.

Two days later it was Bond’s turn. Toby showed him M’s latest signal and he repeated the contents so that Northanger’s CO was satisfied he was word perfect.

They took him in the elderly helicopter to Rome where he went to the Alitalia desk and they provided him with tickets and a baggage claim check.

The flight from Rome to Stockholm was uneventful. He had one hour’s wait for the military transport that ferried him to the West German naval base at Bremmerhaven where he stayed for one night.

On the morning of January 3rd, James Bond, in uniform, stepped aboard a Sea King helicopter which took him out to invincible and her gaggle of escorts which lay twenty miles offshore.

By the following night they were one hundred miles into the North Sea, cruising slowly.and waiting for the orders to be opened which would start Operation Landsea.

They were loading staff at Northanger into innocent-looking buses within four hours of Bond’s departure. Julian Farsee, dressed in olive drab trousers and a military sweater complete with reinforced shoulder and elbow pads, walked into the CO’s office, not even knocking. The CO was shredding documents and hardly turned to look at his Second-in-Command as he came and sat on the desk.

“Well? You think they bought it?” asked All Al Adwan, Farsee’s true name. In the hierarchy of BAST, Adwan was the “Snake” to Bassam Baradj’s “Viper”.

“Of course. All the incoming signals were dealt with. Nobody queried a thing.

Adwan scowled. “Except me. I query your judgment.”

Baradj smiled and fed more paper into the shredder. “Yes? I thought you were unhappy, though you played your part to perfection.

What really worried you, All?”

“You know what worried me. Bond should have been killed.

Here, on the spot, while we had him. What was the point of bringing him here at all, if not to kill him?”

“Already we have made two botched attempts on Bond’s life.

The first was one of those things that just went wrong - the wrong kind of missile, the fact that Bond is obviously a good pilot.” He shrugged, a wide, unhappy gesture. “Then, All, we tried again, and that was disaster. We went for Bond and killed This time his lips clamped together as though he had become upset at the thought. Then, throwing it off, he spoke again. “I made the decision, All. No more assassination attempts until we get nearer to our true targets. There will be plenty of chances then. His sudden death, after the wretched Ischia business, might even have jeopardised the entire operation. They could even have called it off.”

“Then why bring people like him here at all?”

Baradj smiled, patiently. “It was necessary. After Ischia they would have moved him here anyway. They would have wanted him close and confined. We want him confident, so that the blow will fall very unexpectedly. This has been excellent psychology.

We have had a chance to know him and be close. Don’t you think that you know the man better?”

“I know he’s dangerous, but yes. Yes, I think I know him now.

But have we really deceived everyone?”

“All who had to be deceived were deceived. Nobody from any other base, or from London showed any sign that they were concerned. The other regular staff will wake from their enforced sleep in the morning, and I don’t suppose they will question the strange loss of time they will all have suffered. They will eventually realise that in some strange way they all missed Christmas and the week after, but the hypnotics Hamarik supplied should keep the true facts at bay for a week, maybe even ten days. By then, my dear friend, we will have the superpowers, the United States of America and Russia, together with the United Kingdom, on their knees begging for mercy.

Adwan, whose leathery dark complexion seemed now more apparent, smiled and nodded: his attitude changing. “Yes, you are right. In the end of it all we will have a great deal to thank you for, Bassam.”

“What is money compared to this?”

“Ah, but you proved to be a fine actor also.”

Bassam Baradj chuckled, “You were very convincing yourself.”

A smile crossed Adwan’s face. “Oh, ya. Ya. Right,” he said.

Monarchs of the Sea James Bond felt the slight tremor under his feet, and with it the old feeling returned. There was nothing in the world like being at sea in a capital ship: the ordered routine, the feeling of men working as a quiet, well-trained team, the regularity of events, even in a crisis. To Bond, all this returned in a warm shower of nostalgia. No, it was better, because of the very special feeling of serving in this ship.

HMS invincible was a relatively recent addition to the Royal Navy’s history. In some ways she had already become a legend: certainly the first kind of ship of her type-19,500 tons of platform from which to launch practically any type of operation, including the nuclear option with the Green Parrot variable-yield weapons, capable of being carried by the Sea Harriers, to the ikt versions, which could be dropped by Sea Kings as anti-submarine bombs.

The invincible could also carry a Commando for armed assault, and, at this moment, 42 Commando, Royal Marines, was on board.

The ship’s air group consisted of ten Sea Harriers, eleven anti-submarine warfare (ASW) Sea Kings, two anti-electronic warfare (AEW) Sea Kings and one Lynx helicopter, configured for Exocet-type decoy duties. invincible was a very full ship, though officially, and technically, it was not even classed as an aircraft-carrier.

invincible was a Through Deck Cruiser (TDC).

Back in 1966, the then British government had cancelled a new building programme which would give the Royal Navy a number of conventional carriers for fixed-wing aircraft. In the following year a new programme went into action. What they required were light command cruisers with facilities for a number of helicopters. The whole political subject, mainly involving costing and pulling back on defence expenditure, was sensitive, but the success of the V/STOL Harrier aircraft changed things in a dramatic manner.