John Gardner - Never send flowers

For a spectacular few seconds, her upper thighs and lace-decorated hips were revealed, in all their glory, to Charles whose eyes bugged out at the unexpected sight. It was a perfect piece of distraction.

Fredericka had moved to Bond's right while doing her unveiling pirouette, and he was able to launch himself towards Charles, tackling him low, getting right under the gun hand, his right shoulder connecting with the bodyguard's knees.

Charles gave an uncharacteristic squeal as he pitched over Bond's shoulder. Fredericka moved in to grasp the pistol, twisting it and almost wrenching the wretched man's wrist from his arm. There was another scream as Bond dumped him on to the guard chain.

`Let him go, James,' she called, and he instinctively did as she instructed, giving the body a little help with his shoulder.

Charles twisted and turned, then fell from the catwalk, landing on the hard stone below with a thud that made Bond wince. The squeal stopped, and there was silence.

Bond retrieved the Colt, and saw that Fredericka already had Charles' pistol in her hand. `Anyone ever tell you how good you are, Flick?" He patted her shoulder, urging her forward.

`Many times, James. My instructors were always generous in their praise-I was head of the school." She winked, then walked quickly, with Bond at her heels. Every sixty feet or so, the catwalk expanded into a viewing platform with machinery, automata, lights, mirrors and scenery reaching out on each side. Whatever else, Dragonpol obviously possessed a wonderful imagination.

At the far end, they reached a single door. Thick metal with a large heavy lock: it stood half open, and they emerged into the far end of the long passage, which evidently ran right around the enclosed second floor. This time, however, they were facing another metal door that stood open to reveal a narrow stone spiral staircase.

`The tower,' Bond whispered, going straight towards the door and up the steps. He almost ran, using the balls of his feet, to deaden the sound, and he was only aware of Fredericka behind him because of her breathing, light but just audible.

The stone steps twisted upwards, finally coming to a bare flagged landing and yet another metal door. This time it was in two sections, a plain steel, hinged slab which contained two very serviceable locks.

In turn, this was hinged to an insert of solid bars which had its own lock, the whole forming a secure entrance into a very safe area, in which items, even a person, could be easily confined.

On the far side of this door a small lobby led to yet another set of bars. These were also equipped with a locking device, and the entire section was designed to slide to one side. It was half open, and they went through into a large chamber with a high, vaulted ceiling. Great cathedral windows were set in two sides of the room, the glass very thick and clearly unbreakable, but it was the decor which stunned them. A large and comfortable bed occupied one corner.

There were a couple of leather easy chairs, and a very large rough working table, upon which papers were piled and scattered.

The wall directly opposite the entrance was completely taken up by a tall metal filing cabinet, the uppermost part of which could be reached from a ladder, anchored to the top section, and fitted on to a slider. Small wheels at the base of the ladder would allow it to be pushed easily to the required place, and it stood in a central position with one of the higher drawers open, as though the previous occupant had only just retrieved some required file.

Bond went straight to the table, bending and starting to look carefully through the papers. There were charts, drawings, photographs and even maps.

`Looks like the master plan for the museum." He gestured to Fredericka with his hand, calling her over.

Indeed, the topmost showed a view of the area they had just traversed. A quick glance showed they had missed seeing a performance at the Moscow Arts Theatre; one at a London theatre in the 1920s; the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-uponAvon in the late 1960s; part of a performance of Wagner's Ring Cycle at Bayreuth; a modern musical in a Broadway theatre, together with about another six exhibits.

`This man's a genius." Bond began to thumb through another pile of papers which seemed to be the working drawings of the large scale electronics used in the museum.

`A genius, but I think a genius at murder also." Fredericka had lifted the larger plans from the table and was rummaging under them. `These look as though they've been thrown here to hide something else." She moved several more large plans until a series of maps, drawings and notes emerged. `Look here...

But Bond had already been distracted, walking over to the right of one of the high windows, where he stood looking in horror at a bookcase which was anchored to the wall above a deep glass-fronted cabinet.

`No, you look here.She went to him, and began to study the spines of the books, and the lower section of the cabinet, which contained various items marked with small cards. The books beautifully leather bound, with the symbol DD at the bottom of each spine were all works on the same subject political assassination. Here, there were volumes dealing with practically every famous public murder, from Caesar to JFK.

The objects in the cabinet mirrored the same subject. Fredericka caught her breath when she saw items neatly labelled, `Jacket belonging to Graf Claus von Stauffenberg, and worn on the day of his attempted assassination of Adolph Hitler July 20, 1944." Another claimed to be, `The pistol used to kill Mrs Ghandi'.

`He's into the assassination business with a vengeance,' she said quietly. `Come and look at what I've found over here." They returned to the table where, from under the other papers, Fredericka had retrieved several maps, street plans, and sheets of paper upon which were scribbled notes. The street plans were of Milan, Athens and Paris.

There was also a plan of the interior of Milan's famous La Scala Opera House; one of the Acropolis and the Parthenon, in Athens, and several jottings which appeared to depict a certain route leading from the centre of Paris to an unknown point near the city.

Among the scrawled notes, the words Milan, Athens and Paris were neatly underlined with initials next to each city. Milan equalled KTK; Athens showed the initials YA; while Paris had no less than three separate series of letters PD; H;W.

`Targets?" Bond looked at her, raising his eyebrows.

`Could be. Most certainly could be. I think we should get out and..." She stopped abruptly, and they both turned towards the door, sensing another presence near by.

It was only a slight scraping. The sound of leather against the stone outside, but it was enough to send Bond, pistol in hand, to the door.

`No!" he yelled. Then again, `Don't do it or I'll kill you where you stand." William moved, very fast, twirling backwards out of sight.

Bond squeezed the trigger twice, hearing the bullets ricochet off the walls. The outer steel door clanged and the locks clicked shut.

`Damn!" Bond cursed, running forward. The outer door was secure and it would take more than a simple lockpick to get them out.

`I rather think we should see if there's another way out of here." Fredericka calmly began to examine the wall of metal filing cabinets.

`We've outstayed our welcome and I don't particularly want to be here when they come back for us." `The windows?" He went over to the high arches and took a closer look at the glass. `We'd need an armour-piercing weapon to break this stuff, otherwise we could have abseiled down..

`If we had rope, James. Come on, let's be practical, there's some kind of space here around the filing cabinets." She was right. The entire wall of metal files appeared very solid, but, as Fredericka banged on them with her hand, there appeared to be some give, as though they made up a false wall protecting space on the far side.