Bond Movies 06 - The World Is Not Enough (12 page)

The Cub landed at dawn in the western part of the country, in a place of desolation, salt basins and deserts. It was a vast region of strange rock formations and rough terrain. The sun’s heat was already elevating to a desert-like temperature.

Bond followed Truhkin to another Land Rover, again marked with the Atomic Energy Department logo.

I'll drive,’ he said. ‘First time in Kazakhstan?’

‘Yes,’ Bond said.

‘Lovely place,’ Trnhkin said sarcastically as they drove away from the makeshift airfield and onto a dirt road. They went through a rock valley that was decidedly alien in appearance, then eventually came upon a huge mesa with a huddle of low buildings beneath it. As they got closer, Bond could see trucks, Kazakhstani Army personnel carriers, soldiers, and other men in overalls at work.

An explosion off to one side startled them both. A cloud of dust rose from a detonation site five hundred yards away.

When he saw the trucks marked IDA, Bond knew where they were. It was a Russian nuclear testing facility. The IDA, or International Decommissioning Authority, was a United Nations-sponsored organisation that was responsible for managing the decommissioning of nuclear reactors and other radioactive facilities used for research and development in a safe and environmentally sensitive manner.

They got out of the Land Rover and approached the main building, the entrance of which was covered by a protective, inflated bubble. Bond could make out someone inside the bubble wearing a radiation-proof suit and tinkering with objects and tools.

A Russian army colonel was standing at the entrance to the bubble. When he saw Bond’s ID card, he smiled, obviously impressed.

‘Welcome to Kazakhstan, Doctor Arkov!’ he said in Russian. ‘I am Colonel Akakievich. I’m a great admirer of your research. It’s not often we see someone of your stature here.’

Bond replied, ‘I go where the work takes me.’

The colonel hesitated a moment. ‘You do have the transport documents . . .?’

Bond patted his jacket and found the envelope he had fortuitously placed there earlier. He handed it over, hoping for the best.

Colonel Akakievich gave the papers a once-over and nodded toward the bubble. ‘Good. They’re waiting for you below. It should be ready. Check with the IDA physicist.’

The figure in the white radiation-proof suit emerged from the bubble. The helmet came off, revealing a most attractive young woman with long light brown hair. She was sweating profusely and paused to take a cloth from a rack and wipe her forehead with it. Then she undid the suit and stepped out of it. She was wearing very short cut-offs, a khaki sports bra, heavy- duty boots, and a hunting knife. Bond guessed that she was an American.

She had an extraordinary figure. Her breasts bulged beneath the bra, and her legs were tanned sleek and shapely. Bond noticed that every man in the vicinity stopped what he was doing to gawk at her.

The girl grabbed a bottle of water and guzzled, letting the liquid dribble down her chin and onto her top. Next, she poured the bottle over her shoulders until she was soaking. The clothes clung to her tight body, and her hardened nipples could be seen plainly through the bra. Either she was an exhibitionist, Bond thought, or she just didn’t give a damn.

Bond’s eyes met the colonel’s. Akakievich nodded bitterly, then spat on the floor. He said, in English, so that she could hear, ‘Not interested in men. Take my work for it. We decommissioned four test sites this year . . . and not even a glimmer. ’

Bond offered a disappointed ‘tut tut’ as the colonel walked away.

The girl stepped up to Bond, wiping her rather wide mouth. She had amazing green eyes and sparkling white teeth. Bond guessed that she was probably in her midtwenties. He couldn’t help but notice the IDA tag on her belt and the incongruous peace-sign tattoo just above her hip.

‘Are you here for a reason?’ she asked. She gestured to the

colonel. ‘Or are you just hoping for a “glimmer”?’

Bond attempted a light Russian accent, but spoke English. ‘It would appear the nuclear weapons are not the only thing around here that need defusing.’

The girl frowned. ‘Nice try. And you are?’

‘Mikhail Arkov,’ he said. ‘Russian Atomic Energy Department. And you are — Miss —’

‘Doctor. Jones. Christmas Jones,’ she said. ‘And don’t make any jokes. I've heard them all.’

‘I don’t know any doctor jokes,’ he said.

She gave him a dirty look. ‘Give me the papers. Where’s the shipment going?’

‘The nuclear facility at Penza Nineteen/ Bond said. That much he had gleaned from a cursory scan. He handed them to her. ‘I apologise if my countrymen give you a hard time. I know they’re not all happy to see the International Decommissioning Authority here.’

Doctor Jones handed the papers back and said, ‘Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a leaking titanium trigger to look after. I’ve just got through removing a sphere of cobalt blue plutonium from a corroding warhead. I lead a very exciting existence.’

Bond smiled and nodded, but quite obviously didn’t know where he was supposed to go.

She gestured to the building. ‘Take the elevator down the hole. Your friends are already down there.’

‘Don’t I need some kind of. . . protection?’ Bond asked. She looked askance, as if Doctor Arkov should know better. ‘Not unless there’s a leaking titanium trigger I don’t know about. Down there are fission bombs. Weapons grade plutonium. Low radiation risk. It’s not hot. Up here we’ve got hydrogen bombs - that your lab built - leaking tritium - which I’ve spent the last six months trying to clean up. So if you need any protection at all, it’s from me.’

‘Right,’ Bond said, sheepishly. ‘And here I thought we’d abandoned the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Thanks.’

The charm wasn’t working. She pointed to the lift again. ‘That way. They’re waiting.’

He walked toward the elevator, passing a board filled with radioactivity badges.

‘Doctor?’ she called.

Bond turned back to her.

‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’

He realised that he’d made a mistake. It was so basic that he could tell she was suspicious now. He took one of the badges from the board.

‘Right. Of course. Thank you,’ he said. ‘It was a long flight/

He continued toward the lift, when she called after him, in Russian, ‘Your English is very good for a Russian.’

Bond replied, in Russian, ‘I studied at Oxford.’

Christmas watched him disappear into the building and once again wiped the sweat from her brow. Hmmm, she thought. This one was different! Dark and handsome, for a change, if a little screwy'. Something wasn’t right, though . . .

She took another drink of water, then went about her

business.

The lift took Bond down into the ground past three levels. When the doors opened, he found himself completely alone and facing a long, dark, circular corridor. It was dead quiet.

He walked forward until he could hear the sound of machinery and an ominous humming. There was a larger, illuminated room up ahead.

It was a spherical test chamber, surrounded by blast openings designed to channel the fury of a nuclear test to measuring equipment. In the very centre of the chamber was a pit. He was standing in one of several similar tunnels that radiated from the chamber. Bond entered the eerie place, slowly stepped to the middle and looked over into the hole. Four men were working on a device on top of a cart. The head had been removed and much of its guts were exposed. Nevertheless, Bond knew that it was an atomic bomb.

Renard’s voice came from behind. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

At the sound of Renards voice, Bond whipped out the Walther. The whine of a lift began and Bond saw Renard, dressed in Russian Army fatigues, lowering himself on a platform. Bond stole through the shadows to meet the terrorist, keeping his head down as Renard descended. As Renard stepped off the lift, Bond came face to face with him and smiled. The gun was pointing at Renard’s chcst.

‘Mister Bond,’ he said, obviously surprised.

‘Expecting Davidov perhaps?’ Bond asked. ‘He caught a bullet instead of the plane.’ Bond yanked him away from the lift and shoved him against a wall, out of sight. ‘Keep your mouth shut. Don’t move.’

Renard all but laughed. ‘You can’t kill me, Mister Bond,’ he said. ‘I'm already dead.’

‘Not dead enough for me.’

Finally confronting the man who was responsible for murdering Sir Robert King, 0012 and countless others . . . as well as kidnapping and raping Elektra King . . . Bond had to control himself to keep from blowing Renard’s brains out then and there. It would have been a pleasure. Unfortunately, he needed a bit more time, during which the terrorist might reveal a little of the scheme he had concocted. Such people always did.

Renard had shrugged away his surprise and now appeared to be fully confident. He looked at Bond with a twinkle in his good eye. The other one stared straight ahead, unblinking, cold and lifeless. A smile played on half of Renard’s face, but the other comer of his mouth turned down in a grimace. The shiny red lump at his temple only added to the man’s bizarre appearance.

You could show a little gratitude. I did spare you life in the banker’s office.' Renard was beginning to enjoy himself. ‘Oh! But that’s nght . . . ! I couldn’t kill you. You were working for me! I needed you to deliver the money. To kill King. Thank you for that. Well done. And now you’ve brought me the plane. It seems that I can always count on MI6.’

Bond ignored the taunt. ‘What’s your plan with that

bomb?’

Renard seemed totally fearless. ‘You first. Or could it be you don’t have a plan?’

Unfortunately, he had spoken an uncomfortable truth. Bond needed to buy time in order to work out what to do.

‘That bomb won’t leave this room,’ he said.

‘Neither will you,’ Renard said, chuckling.

Bond risked a glance at the pit to see what the workers were doing with the bomb.

‘How sad,’ Renard continued. To be threatened by a man who can’t grasp what he’s caught up in. You haven’t a clue, have you?’

‘Revenge isn’t hard to fathom from a man who believes in nothing.’

Renard laughed. ‘And what do you believe in? Preservation of capital? You ’re nothing but a dim-witted bouncer at a fancy English club run by your betters. Too busy chasing the member;’ daughters to do your job. Shoot me. I welcome it. The men down there will hear the shot. They will kill you and get away with the bomb.’

‘The fire-fight will bring down half those troops from the surface.’

‘Perhaps. But when a certain phone call isn’t received in twenty minutes. . .’ He said into Bond’s face, ‘Go ahead. Pull the trigger, and you’ll kill Elektra.’

‘You’re bluffing.’

‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’ Renard said. ‘I think you’ve fallen for her. I can see it on your face. Well, my friend, you should have had her before. When she was innocent. Before she was such a whore in bed.’

Bond’s eyes flared in fury. He shoved Renard against the wall again and pressed the gun into his temple.

‘How does it feel’ Renard continued, knowing he had hit a nerve. ‘To know I broke her in for you?’

Furious, Bond struck Renard across the temple with the pistol. The terrorist dropped to his knees. He touched his head, then looked curiously at the blood on his fingers. He felt no pain at all.

Bond screwed on the silencer. ‘I usually hate killing an unarmed man. Cold-blooded murder is a filthy business. But in your case, I feel nothing. Just like you.’ He held the gun down, aiming at Renard’s head.

‘A man tires of being executed,’ Renard said. ‘But then again, there is no point in living if you can’t . . . feel alive.’

Bond was about to squeeze the trigger when the sound of running footsteps interrupted him.

‘Drop the gun,’ Colonel Akakievich commanded. Bond froze. He turned to see the colonel with two armed soldiers and Doctor Christmas Jones.

‘Keep away, colonel,’ Bond said. The soldiers trained their guns on Bond.

‘He’s an imposter,’ Christmas said. She held up a printout. ‘Doctor Arkov is sixty-three years old.’

‘Here’s your imposter,’ Bond said, indicating Renard.

‘Along with the men on the plane outside. They're stealing your bomb, colonel.’

Christmas, surprised by the change in Bond’s accent, listened, but Akakievich cocked his rifle.

‘I said drop it,’ the colonel ordered.

He clearly meant it. Bond delayed another second . . . but had no choice. He pulled the magazine from his gun and tossed it down. At that moment, a whirring sound filled the room as machinery in the pit came to life. The cone-shaped bomb, enclosed in a carrying cage, rose into view as Renard’s men quickly manipulated a robot arm to place the extremely heavy device on a wheeled cart. Then they attached the cage to an overhead track with chains so that it could be pushed through the tunnel more easily.

‘Well done,’ Renard said to Christmas. ‘He would have killed us all.’ Then, to Akakievich, ‘I suppose you were the one who allowed him down?’

The colonel looked suitably embarrassed.

So, Bond thought, Renard and the Russian colonel were in this together. But what about the girl? Was she a part of their cabal? From the confused look on her face, Bond guessed not. She was being used, too The doctor was staring at him now, wondering if she had just made a huge mistake.

Bond watched as one of the men referred to a Russian document just like the one he had seen in M’s office and then removed a thin metal rectangular object from inside the bomb. It was the size of a credit card. The man slipped it into his shirt pocket.

‘Take him away,’ Renard said to the colonel. ‘I don’t want him here when we move the bomb.’ He then stepped close to Bond and whispered, ‘You had me. But I knew you couldn’t shoulder the responsibility . . .’

With that, Renard jammed his hand into Bond’s bad collarbone, squeezing hard. Pain jolted through Bond as he dropped to his knees in agony. He held his shoulder and grimaced, but his mind raced. How did Renard know to hurt him there?

Renard then approached Christmas, who was petrified with fear. ‘I'm sorry, my dear, but you have to join our other guest,’ he said. ‘It’s too bad you had to witness all of this.’ He turned to his men. ‘Now, without any further interruptions, let’s get on with it!’