Part 21 (1/2)
Once airborne, the craft was controlled in lider: movements of the body, with increases and decreases in power, caused the parachute to cli with this popular flying machine over the past year Bond had even flown one on a couple of occasions The Special Air Service, who are the world's ) parachutists, had es in the Powerchute so that it could carry one or two people over longer distances and at greater speeds Their favorite practice use was to travel over difficult terrain, cliine, and glide down silently, et
His request for a Powerchute, he felt, had been made on the basis of the terrain around Puerto Rico, and Ann Reilly had told hi for him below the outer walls of El Morro - on the Atlantic side looking out to sea - where grass sweeps up from the sea and rocks below
Intuition hadout, he had nothat Tarn would, at thedown, be up on the top level around the highest gun emplaceether and kneithout the shadow of a doubt, that elite troops must be nearby, probably under joint British and Aan to think of what action he could take to get hiainst the rocks on the outside of El Morro It was as good a way as any to pass the time, for he was now also sure in his mind that by nine o'clock Flicka would have made her telephone calls In that case there was no way they would even get as far as the harbor His preparation had to be the speed hich he could escape through the trunk before the sub was shattered by depth charges
He dozed for a while, never far from the surface of consciousness, and ith a start to the sound of voices shi+fting in the confined space, he leaned out, surprised to discover that with only a slight dropping of his head below the level of the hatch he could hear anything said in the control rooood time” The voice of the Scottish captain
”Better to be early than having to dash in at the last minute” Maurice Goodwin sounded pompous
”Aye, well, I can probably move out to sea a little Maybe even put the pair of torps into Golden Bough before she reaches the harbor”
”You'll do no such thing,” Goodwin snapped ”You're going to play this one by the book, Jock Understand raph, and line That damned shi+p has to be hit inside the harbor In fact, just as it passes in”
”I was only pullin' yer leg,alone, Jock This is a bloody dangerous business”
”Dinna worry, mon We'll put the fish into the tanker and be away from the area in ht place at the right time I want to be able to see Mare Nostruet the torpedoes away, and you do that on the dot of eight”
”I said, dinna worry, Maurice I' days when I was chasing nazis in the Atlantic”
He withdrew his head, flexed his shoulders, again stretched his limbs as far as possible, then leaned back The Scottish captain was obviously a man who did not take people like Maurice Goodwin seriously Tarn h knowing him as he did, Bond wondered if the plan had actually included the captain and crew ever getting off the subht crossed his h search It was always possible that Tarn had already sabotaged the boat so that she would be lost on the way back around the island That would be his way, and et rid of other weak links like Maurice Goodwin That would fit
He dozed again, waking at just after eight Less than twelve hours to go and the fatigue was creeping into every sinew of his body He slid quietly back into another doze and quickly fell down the long dark tunnel of sleep He drea the water wash him as he swam to the bottom of a clear sea and picked oysters fro the beach Flicka waited for him, and there was a smile of pleasure on her face as she took the oysters fro them open to reveal the pearls in the center of the flesh
Then the drea too tired to even try to ain it ith another start, and the sensation that he had been unconscious for a very long time He could hardly e to glance at his watch It was impossible, for the hands on the stainless-steel Rolex showed ten past three
The sub at speed under the surface There was thefro of the radar, and nothing to break the sress For the first ti to alert people at nine that o If she had done so, this boat should now be either lying silent and deep, or trying to escape fro helicopters
He shook his head and heard Flicka, only a short ti that sorave He felt a cold chill of horror envelop his body, while there see down on the inside of his skull
If anything had happened to Flicka, it was his fault and his alone If he had listened to her, they would have been together now, bringing things to a conclusion without either of theer
HisThree o'clock in ain to make certain that he had not drea deep in his subconscious told hireat peril
24 - SeaFire
The minutes became hours; hours became days There was no question of sleep for Bond now Every nerve and sinew had become alert, nervously jumpy with anxiety It was not often that he allowed problee his mind, but this was Fredericka, the woman he loved The wohost from the past appeared: a blurred picture of his first wife of only a few hours, Tracy di Vicenzo, lying dead, her face buried in the ruins of the steering wheel of his Lancia, which had been raked with bullets fired by his old enemy, Ernst Stavro Blofeld
The picture was overlapped in his head, Tracy's features going through ato Flicka's oeet face If anything has happened to her, he thought, then pushed even the idea away He had alreadySir Max Tarn to justice, dead or alive If anything has happeneddeath would not be enough for Tarn
The picture returned, and with it a kind of certainty that there was so With that certainty ca career, Bond had rarely allowed any true eet he had followed or dealt with Now there was true anger, a fury that seemed to rend him apart If he had the fortune to come out of this alive and face Tarn, it would be face-to-face
At around six o'clock, his worst fears were confir silent, hove to under the sea He had heard the captain say that it would take theet into position ”No sense in pushi+ng our way in too early,” he had told Goodwin
Now the captain and Goodwin had walked back toward the ste a little exercise They traversed the deck twice and finally stopped al a muscle
”So what happens when Sir Max proves his point with this AAOPS thing?” the captain asked
”God knows” Maurice Goodwin's voice was flat, with no hint of how he really felt ”I suspect that I shall quietly disappear I've saved enough money to keep myself comfortable for the rest of my natural, in Rio or soets his party really organized in Gers are in Europe, the mood of the people, leaves the way open for hi to return, and this time the madgest, Jock, that you grab your et the hell out as quickly as you can I'oing to be disaster up there when you slam the fish into that tanker, and I've no doubt that the authorities will do their best to hunt him down The man's mad, Jock Mad as a hatter, but he's bloody clever I wouldn't count on hiht, and if he is”
”You think he'll let hiht?”
”You mean he'd rather be a suicide? Oh, no Max will always think he's in the right, just as he has no true conception of right or wrong Men like me - and you, for that s we've done and we can differentiate between good and, evil Not so with Max He has to be in the right If heover her with the ax in his hand, he would have sou the right thing He's also a bad enes I've seen, Jock, you'd know”
After a few seconds' pause, the captain asked, ”Wasn't there some talk of people actually after him, here in Puerto Rico?”
”Indeed, yes One of theence people We've got the Yank and the Brit woman at the house They're there with Beth You've met Beth, haven't you?”
”Aye, and I'd rather not spend too much time with her In fact, it wouldn't worry ain”
”She's Max's secret weapon, and a very nasty weapon at that He provides the drugs and she gets her rocks off providing the pain and even death”
”She's not killed the Yank and the Brit?”
”Not yet, but give her tiet hoe wos and Max suggests things to her, it's a different irls, Cathy and Anna, they can be deadly They'll fight like trained soldiers”
”I thought asthe oat if they thought it'd give theet his circulation going, had listened to the exchange with the kind of horrorless deadly, like a scorpion
At least he knew Flicka was still alive, or had been when Goodwin last saw her For the u day, his hand o now, try to take out the crew and to blazes with anyone else: just get to Flicka and er The more sensible part of his e now
His watch ticked on, and he began to glance at it automatically about once a an to ain
Half an hour later he heard the captain call, ”Up periscope” The rees to port” At seven-thirty exactly the captain gave the final order ”Stop engines We're there and Golden Bough is coht towards the headland She's on tihts at twenty hundred On the button”
Another wait, and Bond's watch showed seven thirty-five Fifteen minutes before his plastique would blow the boat to hell Tis, ar after the hunched position they had been forced into all day