Christopher Wood - The Spy Who Loved Me

Bond dropped his shoulder and charged through an oval metal door as bullets skipped at his heels. A flight of stairs zig-zagged upwards. Now it was just the sound of his boots ringing against the metal as he headed for the deck. Blood was slopping down the inside of his sleeve but his arm was still functioning. Within him was a deadly sense of purpose that kept him going. He must eliminate Stromberg. With its brain destroyed, perhaps the monster would slither to a halt. The submarine commanders would listen to reason, Armageddon could be avoided.

Bond felt fresh air beating against his face. He must be near the deck. The sinews of his legs screamed for respite. He urged himself forward and fell against the heavy handle that twisted downwards to give him access to the deck. My God! Where was he? Bond stuck his head out of the deck housing and felt a small gale tugging at his head. He might be on the roof of a gigantic building. Battalions of pipes ran into infinity like railway lines across an endless plain. The sky lowered down as if feeling menaced by the brute structure soaring up beneath it.

Bond heard the developing roar of rotor blades and jerked his head towards the Bavarian madness of the stern. Silhouetted against the towering bridge structure was die Bell, lifting into the air. Bond started to run towards it, jumping over pipes until he came to the central catwalk.

He sprang on to a hatch cover and clawed his way up, throwing the automatic in front of him. Now he had it in his grasp and was rising to his feet. The helicopter stabilized, tipped and began to follow the line of the catwalk as if using it as a runway. Bond could see its glinting, bulbous nose, like the head of a dragonfly, getting larger and larger. All he had to do was raise his gun and rake it from nose to tail as it flew overhead. He tensed, seeing the outline of the pilot, and Stromberg, and - Anya. The vibrating roar filled Bond's ears. His finger tightened against the trigger. The helicopter filled the sky above his head. He waited for the sound of the bullets ripping into the fuselage. The cockpit exploding like a lightbulb. Nothing. Nothing at all. His finger trembled against the trigger as if in a death spasm. Nothing happened. The surface- thumping beat of the rotor blades began to die away. Bond spun round. The helicopter was rising now, clearing the bow of the Lepadus and tilting away to starboard.

With a sense of shame that was physically painful, Bond realized what he had done. He had betrayed his country and himself because of his attachment to a woman. He had not opened fire because Anya was a prisoner in the cockpit. What a contemptible fool he was! Bitter and self-despising he turned his back on the spectacle of his perfidy.

Like a quixotic windmill, the bridge soared into the air before him. Right! Pull yourself together, Bond! Attack! He started to run down the catwalk towards the helideck. Two mechanics and a guard were moving cans away from its perimeter. Refuelling must have been done by hand. Bond opened up from long range and corrected his aim according to the passage of his bullets. A fuel-can exploded and, instantly, the helideck was a square pool of flame. Aviation spirit had been slopped all over it. A yellow flame soared into the sky, its edge shimmering so that the bridge seemed to be seen through perspex. Tongues of red ran through the flame and a man staggered out of it a blazing torch. As Bond watched, he appeared to dissolve into the deck. The heat singed Bond’s eyelashes and scorched his cheeks. There was no air left to breathe. The roar of the flames was deafening.

Bond fell back as there was a second explosion, more powerful than the first. The rest of the fuel-cans had gone up. Now the yellow became embroidered with needles of black and a dense smoke blotted out die bridge. One of the oil-tanks next to the cofferdam must have caught fire.

Bond scrambled over the rail of the catwalk and dropped to the deck. The fire would cause a valuable diversion. He broke into a run and hurdled the pipes that blocked his path to the nearest deck housing. Now the mist of self-loathing was clearing and he could re-programme his mind to the job in hand. Get inside the control room! That was the most important objective. He clattered down the stairs as a guard loomed out of a companionway beside him. Bond pressed the trigger but the magazine was empty. The man1 spun to fire but Bond knocked the weapon sideways and drove the barrel of his gun into the unprotected stomach. The man jack-knifed and Bond swung the butt of his weapon in a vicious, two- handed uppercut that delivered the forged steel flush to the side of the jaw. The neck snapped like a stick of rock. Bond unclamped the dead fingers, one by one, and took the man’s weapon. He slung his own over his shoulder and continued down the stairs.

As he approached the bottom, he could hear the steady drumming of automatic fire. The battle was not over. He waited behind the heavy metal door and listened to his heart pounding. The blood was coagulating about his wrist and the arm was stiffening up. He could not afford to stop moving. Taking several deep breaths, he twisted the handle and leant against the door sufficiently to push it open a couple of inches. The murky water glimmered in front of him. As he had imagined, he was further down towards the bows than when he had entered the port companion ways. Above him and towards the stern was the central catwalk that traversed the dock area. In its middle was a revolving gun-platform now facing towards the brig. Bond could see the backs of the three gunners as they crouched behind the shield. He looked towards the control room and his heart fell. The louvres were shut tight to form an impenetrable wall. Half a dozen bodies lay scattered on the balcony in front of them.

It was brutally clear that there was no easy way through to the nerve centre of the Stromberg empire. And there were less than four hours to Armageddon.

Drowned, Buried and Cremated

Bond fought off weariness and despondency and edged his way out on to the quayside. There had never been any doubt that it was going to be difficult. Once you started feeling sorry for yourself you were finished. Maybe the same was true about feeling sorry for other people.

He shrank back against the iron plating and reviewed the situation. From what he could see, Carter and the rest of the escaped prisoners were spread out round the berths. Some of them had got into the side galleries; occasional shots were winging from that direction. A number of them had perished in an unsuccessful attack on the control room. From the spread of their fire it sounded as if they had laid their hands on some more weapons. But wherever they moved they were within range of the central gun emplacement on the catwalk. That had to be knocked out. Bond’s eye swung on a closer orbit. The hovercar track and its protective tube ran within six feet. One of the hovercraft was conveniently placed in the nearest opening. That was twenty feet away. Bond looked around him and emerged from the shadow.

He had taken two steps when there was an ear-splitting screech above his head. He threw himself full length and screwed his eyes shut, waiting for the bullets to skewer into his flesh. Nothing happened. The siren continued to wail and he relaxed fractionally. It must be an alarm signal announcing the fire on deck. No help likely from down here, chums. Everybody has got their hands full. He raised his head and crawled towards the hovercar. It was a simple six-seater shell with a dead-man’s handle connecting to the electrified monorail. Lift it and you got the juice to propel the hovercar. The wailing of the siren stopped and there was an eerie silence

broken by the groans of a wounded man lying near the brig. There was a short burst of fire from the central catwalk and the groans stopped. Bond’s teeth ground together with a sound that was almost audible. He didn’t like shooting people in the back but sometimes they made it easier for you.