Christopher Wood - The Spy Who Loved Me

Room 4c was long and narrow, and painted a brilliant, almost blinding white. The girl had never been in it before, and was surprised to find it empty. She had supposed that this was where Stromberg kept papers too secret even for her eyes. As she walked through the door she was startled by a high- pitched buzz and a red flashing light at the far end of the room. She stopped, then relaxed. It must be some kind of security device. Stromberg had sent her here, so presumably it was safe to proceed.

Drawn by the light, she strode down the room towards what looked like sliding doors. The safe must be behind them.

Suddenly there was a solid clunk behind her. She whirled. The door had shut. As she started towards it there was a whir of machinery and a partition fell from the ceiling like a guillotine blade, missing her by inches. The room had shrunk to a quarter of its original size.

The girl began to panic. She jabbed a finger against what she hoped desperately was an alarm button. Apart from breaking one of her long, beautifully manicured nails, she achieved nothing. There was no sound of a bell ringing.

Instead the doors slid gently aside. She was face to face with an expanse of glass that stretched from floor to ceiling. The girl shook her head, unable to believe what she was seeing. Behind the glass was water, hundreds and thousands of gallons of it. And fish, brightly coloured tropical fish, darting by singly or drifting in shoals. The girl shrank back against the far wall. It was eerie down here with that enormous pressure of water behind the glass.

What was happening? Had the complex electrical system that powered Strombcrg’s headquarters finally broken down? Supposing the glass broke? She screamed and the noisereverberated round her prison and echoed in her ears.

‘Stay calm!' She said the words out loud and peered across the tank to see if she could make out where she was. In the murk something moved. The girl saw what it was and screamed again. The nose appeared first, like a streamlined shell. Then the small pig eyes. Then the whole fish. It was a great white shark. The girl shrank back in terror and the shark sped towards her. She caught a glimpse of the two rows of jagged teeth set back beneath the pointed snout and then the fish keeled away, its white belly nearly brushing against the glass. The girl sank to her knees and started to sob hysterically. What did this nightmare mean? What in God’s name was happening to her?

Crack! The sudden jolting noise was like someone freeing a window that has become frozen by frost. The glass before her lurched and water burst into the room at floor level like a sluice-gate being winched up. The water splashed against her knees and she screamed and scrambled to her feet. Her desperate hands thrust against the glass and tried to push it down but it was a pathetic, useless gesture. Her fingers slid down the glass as it remorselessly continued to force its way upwards and the rising tide of rushing water drove her skirt above her lovely legs and soft, unplundered thighs. She screamed words that had no meaning and offered no hope of salvation, and as the water rose above her shoulders and her bruised head beat like a cork against the roof, the light went out and a loudspeaker crackled into life.

‘It is you who betrayed us, Kate Chapman, and you will pay the penalty!’

The water closed above the girl’s head and the shark turned and sped in for the kill.

In the room above the figures of the two children in the Romney painting shivered as if in sympathy with the fate of the girl and then moved obediently to one side. Enclosed within the ornate, gilded frame of the painting was now revealed a television screen.

Bechmann and Markovitz sat with the sweat of fear sticking to their bodies and watched the screen as if hypnotized. The shark had the girl by the thigh and was worrying her like a bone. A disgusting pink candy-floss of blood spurted in all directions. For an instant, the shark’s head filled the camera and it was possible to see the triangular saw teeth grinding their way through the white bone, the terrifying glint of incontestable purpose in the small, evil eye. Then the leg came away from the body and dropped slowly to the floor of the tank leaving a corkscrew spiral of blood. The shark chased it for a moment and then turned like a whiplash to snap its mouth about the girl’s waist. There was an impression of the girl's suppliant head jerking forward, the long, black hair smeared across the face, the arms pushing vainly against the brutal, gut-ripping maw. And then the stomach burst and the horrifying carnage on the screen was mercifully obliterated in a thick red cloud.

The silence in the room was broken by a soft purr as the Romney slid back into place and two sweet and wholesome eighteenth-century children beamed down upon the three men in the room. Bechmann fought a desire to be sick and Markovitz wiped the sweat from his forehead with a wide bandana handkerchief.

The red slowly oozed from Stromberg’s eyes and his mouth regained its normal shape. During the television transmission, the two men sitting on either side of him had been aware of an increased pattern of breathing from their employer, and on one occasion a long, sibilant hiss. Nevertheless, no sum of money on earth would have induced them to turn and look at him. The horror of the television screen was enough.

‘Gentlemen.’ Stromberg’s meticulous enunciation brought the heads swinging dutifully round. ‘Is there any other business?’

The words toppled one after the other like giant dominoes of ice. He rose, and neither of the men spoke.

‘Good. Then you are free to leave.’

When the two men had hurried from the room, Stromberg returned to his chair, made a note on his pad and pressed one of the switches on the small rectangular console in front of him. He inclined his head and spoke calmly.

‘Send in Jaws.’

On the Scent

The muted drone of the fanjets changed key and Bond felt himself projected forward as the nose of the British Airways VC10 tilted and began its long descent towards Cairo International Airport. The North African coast had been crossed west of the Ras el Kenayis and Bond calculated that with any luck he would be on the ground within thirty minutes. Just time to review the situation and consume another dry martini. He reached above his head and pulled the call button for a stewardess. Was it a sign of growing old or was it really true that stewardesses were not as beautiful as they used to be? The girl approached him, brushing a wisp of errant hair away from her forehead.

‘Yes sir?’

‘I’d like another dry martini, please.’

The girl pursed her lips and tried to remember the lesson he had taught her. ‘Er - that’s three measures of gin

‘Gordon’s.’

'- one measure of vodka -'

‘Polish or, preferably Russian.’

‘-shaken until it’s ice cold and then topped with a large, thin slice of lemon peel.’ The girl finished triumphantly.

Bond did not care for the word ‘topped’ but he nodded agreeably. ‘And I'd like it in the largest glass you’ve got, please.’ Bond hated to see a good drink suffocating in a tiny glass. The martini would already be less than perfection without the addition of half a measure of Kina Lillet - a taste that his friends were always trying to cure him of, without success. There was no point in asking for it because airlines did not carry such fundamental treasures.

Bond adjusted a stream of cool air on to his face and told

himself not to be grumpy and pompous. Perhaps it was that damn medical making him feel old. He knew that he smoked far too much and was at the upper level of what a man could decently drink without being considered to have an overreliance on alcohol. He did not need some apple-cheeked little whippersnapper fresh out of medical school leaning across a table and telling him that he was endangering his health.