Bond shrugged and checked the magazine and action of the Browning 9mm.
Mullins was first out of the door, followed by Leiter who shouted that he wanted Sanchez alive. ‘I have to take him back breathing,’ he called after Mullins whose bulk was already in the doorway of the jet. Hawkins covered the two pilots who quietly raised their hands, showing they were neither armed nor looking for trouble.
‘Nobody in the airplane.’ Mullins returned, and in the breath of silence that followed, they all heard the noise of the jeep, audible above the slowly-turning rotors.
‘That’ll be them!’ Bond pointed to a dust cloud moving fast from the direction of the house.
‘Upstairs!’ Leiter was already scrabbling back into the chopper which was hovering as Bond, bringing up the rear, eased himself to the door.
The jeep was a couple of hundred yards away, weaving through the dusty ground between patches of dark-green undergrowth. The vehicle swung, skidding dangerously from side to side as the chopper, nose down, approached low, trying to block its escape.
They could see several men aboard, and Felix put a few rounds from his M16 in front of the vehicle. Instead of stopping the jeep, the shots brought a hail of fire from its occupants. Inside the helicopter the agents flinched as the thuds and metallic whines battered at the fuselage. The pilot spun the machine on its axis and began to hover, descending in front of the jeep. At the height of the firefight, nobody saw Sanchez roll free of the jeep into the scrub, turning, crouching and running, bent close to the ground, back towards the house.
As the chopper came to about ten feet from the ground, Bond, who had been standing in the doorway, leapt out, rolled and brought the pistol up in a one-handed grip, loosing off three sets of double shots, aimed at the wheels.
Two of the tyres exploded and the jeep went into a long uncontrolled skid, slamming sideways, starting to roll, then ending up on its side.
As the jeep came to a standstill with a grinding crunch, so Bond moved forward, both arms outstretched and the pistol a simple extension of his hands. He fired another couple of shots as he glimpsed figures flitting into the undergrowth, shouting a ‘Come on? This way!’ to the others.
There was a girl in the jeep. Alive, conscious but looking shocked and with tear stains damp on her cheeks. Bond rested his hands on her shoulders, asking if she needed help. But the girl simply glanced towards the undergrowth into which the men had disappeared and shook her head.
‘You need a doctor,’ he said, looking closer. There was something very wrong with this beautiful young woman.
‘Keep your hands off me. Get away. Get right away. Don’t you dare touch me!’ she spat at Bond, and at that moment Hawkins reached the jeep.
‘They’re in the bushes somewhere.’ Bond let go of the girl and took two steps towards the undergrowth.
‘Stop!’ The shout was from Leiter who was signalling the helicopter forward. ‘There! There!’ He pointed, and, for the first time they saw, and heard, the little Piper Cub which had been parked near the house. It was gathering speed and the pilot raised his hand in a salute.
‘Sanchez!’ Leiter was white with anger. ‘We’ve lost him. He can be in Cuban airspace in twenty minutes.’
The helicopter reached them just as the Cub became airborne.
‘We can outrun him in this.’ Bond was already clambering back into the helicopter. To the pilot he shouted, ‘Can you keep up with that Piper?’
The pilot nodded and the machine began to rise again.
‘You’re supposed to be an observer, James. What’re you trying to do, get yourself killed?’
‘If I don’t get you to the church within a reasonable margin of time, Della’s going to kill me anyway,’ he said with an almost studied nonchalance. ‘And in twenty minutes you’ll be right on time, only it’s going to take us at least an hour and a half, not counting stopping time to pick up Sanchez. Prepare for squalls, Felix.’
Leiter’s brow creased as he saw Bond reach out for the winching gear, complete with hook and line.
‘What the hell’re you doing?’
‘Just what Sharky advised. I’m going fishing. Sanchez’s just below us now. I’m going to give you a wedding present. Operate the winch, Felix, and instruct the pilot.’ With a smile, Bond swung out on the line, wrapping it around his leg with a practised flick.
The airflow caught his body and he swung backwards in a stomach-rolling twist. Glancing down, the world twirled, spinning, and Bond wondered what in heaven’s name he thought he was doing. This was not only damned uncomfortable, but also bloody dangerous. Some forty feet below him was the Cub’s red tail-fin, and he motioned to Felix who started to winch him down.
Slowly the light aircraft grew larger and Bond began to be caught in both its slipstream and the downdraught of the rotors. Below the aircraft there was the best part of a thousand-foot drop into the sea. He felt his hair being blown around, and it was necessary to close his eyes because of the forces eddying about his face.
Bond grabbed towards the airplane’s tail, missed, swung sideways, grabbed again and missed again.
Behind him there was a flapping noise which distracted him until he realised it was simply the tails of his morning coat blowing and cracking in the wind. In spite of the fear that engulfed him, Bond began to laugh. He was thinking that he must look a ludicrous sight, like some movie stuntman doing a particularly daring act for the cameras.
Suddenly the chopper seemed to put on speed and Bond threw his arms around the top of the tail-fin, his body crashing painfully into the rudder.
In the cockpit, Sanchez felt the weight and fought the controls, deftly tinkering with the trim tabs to restore the airplane’s balance.
But Bond had begun to inch himself down the rudder, making the plane yaw to and fro, his body swinging from side to side as Sanchez made sharp corrections. Bond traversed lower, feeling for the towing-ring set behind the tail wheel.
His hands were sore, burning with pain, and he fought desperately to pull at the line which hung below his foot, trailing backwards in the wind with the hook jerking at the rope. It seemed to take hours, a few minutes in reality, to draw the line upwards and grasp the hook, one arm wrapped around the tail, the other hand on the hook, fighting the pressure until he had brought it up and around the Piper Cub’s tow-ring. But, at last it was done. Bond hung on, his head straining upwards trying to see if Felix and the pilot had the right idea.
They had. The big helicopter slowed and the rope took the strain. Bond, clinging on like the proverbial grim death, prayed that there had been no parachute in the Cub’s cockpit. Not that it would have mattered much. Jumping into the sea in these waters would almost certainly mean a blow-out for the sharks.
Sanchez would have been a fool if he had not worked out what the helicopter and its crew were attempting. He had bucked the aircraft from side to side, tried reducing power and then slamming the little Lycoming engine through the gate. Nobody, he thought, could possibly remain on the tail, but he continued to feel the drag increasing. Then, to his horror, he found the aircraft was beginning to wallow. Even with the engine at full throttle, the controls had become mushy and the airspeed began to bleed-off steadily.
At stalling point, Sanchez, who was not known for fear, cried out. The controls went slack and the horizon began to rise above him as the airplane’s nose dropped sickeningly, then stopped, the ground below swinging and spinning, yet the force of gravity having no effect.
It took Sanchez a full minute to realise that he was sitting in an airplane suspended from a helicopter’s winch which was slowly being drawn upwards.
The latter action was only to allow Bond to get back inside the helicopter to the jubilant trio of Leiter, Hawkins and Mullins.
Once he was through the door, they let the line out a little so that, when they returned to the coastguard helipad, on the north-west side of the town, they could dump the plane softly on to the tarmac.
When they did arrive back, people
poured out of hotels and shops to watch this strange sight of a light aircraft swinging, suspended under the helicopter.
People drinking in Sloppy Joe’s and Captain Tony’s came out on to the sidewalks; folks who had been patiently waiting in church for the wedding, stampeded for the door as the news passed through St Paul’s like a brush fire; the good ol’ boys sitting around Garrison Bight, and the smart young people around the modern Marina could hardly believe their eyes.
‘Airplane wreck, I guess,’ said one of the good ol’ boys.
‘If’n God had meant us to fly he’d’ve given us jet engines ’stead of assholes,’ another good ol’ boy spat accurately into the gutter.
Outside St Paul’s church, Sharky pleaded with the beautiful Ms Della Churchill who had, only minutes before, called the whole wedding off.
‘They’re here, Della. Just twice more around the block and they’ll be sitting up front there, with the preacher ready to go.’
Della took a deep breath, then relented. ‘Okay, only twice more though.’
Sharky leapt into the Bentley telling the driver to go like hell. Over his shoulder he shouted back at Della, ‘Twice more. Slowly, though. Very slowly.’
As it was, the future Mrs Leiter went around four more times at a crawl. Only then were Felix Leiter and his best man, James Bond, in place, their white roses pinned correctly, though their morning clothes looked decidedly the worse for wear.
So, almost three hours late, the strains of the bridal chorus from Lohengrin piped out and Della, an irritated glint in her eyes behind the veil, came beautifully down the aisle to go through the wedding ceremony at last.
‘Well, they got me to the church, almost on time,’ Felix said later on their way back to his delightful gingerbread house which had cost him a fortune, his entire CIA kiss-off money together with accrued interest.
2
UNWANTED GUESTS
James Bond found himself a quiet corner in the main room of Felix Leiter’s house, nursing a glass of champagne, running his eyes over the guests, looking for what he thought of as ‘likely winners’. He had spotted one earlier, outside the church. A tall and striking brunette dressed in a crisp pink suit. Yet, somehow the suit was not right, as though the girl preferred to slouch about in jeans and a T-shirt. It was only a quick impression that Bond could never have explained, but, as lovely as she was, the girl seemed out of place and, in his constant inquisitive hunt for the secret of women, he was anxious to talk with her.
His eyes searched the room, but the girl was missing so he began to review possible second choices. It was not as though he had all the time in the world, for he was already late on site for an assignment M, his chief, had authorised a week ago.
Around him the wedding party shrieked, laughed, babbled and appeared to be going true to form. He wandered over to the buffet where white-coated waiters assisted in dispensing plates of jumbo prawns, accompanied by the usual hot red sauce; salmon, both cold and smoked, and a great assortment of salads. Bond saw there were puddings also and eyed the local Key Lime pie which, if not a gourmet dish, he always found cleared the palate wonderfully.
Two girls, talking animatedly about diets and what they dared eat, stood together on his left, so Bond quietly intruded with a remark about the millions of calories that lay in front of them. They seemed happy enough after he had introduced himself and they, in turn, announced themselves to be Lizzie Owen, a short, bubbly and attractive young woman who turned out to be an artist, and a shy blonde who simply gave her name as Pat. Bond marked the latter as possibly his best chance for the evening and began the tedious business of small-talk, leading gently to more serious matters. Half an hour later he had discovered that Pat had come to Key West for a week, en route for Australia. That had been nine years ago.
‘Some people regard this place as the really tacky end of Florida,’ she told him. ‘But it has a strange sense of unreality. It’s a place of escape. Mind you, I really don’t know how people like Hemingway ever managed to get any creative work done here.’
Bond was about to make some light remark about Key West being different in Hemingway’s time, when he saw Della, looking radiant and very happy, heading in his direction. As she approached she raised her right hand displaying a long and lethal cake knife.
‘James!’
Bond thought he had rarely seen her so happy. He put his hands up in mock surrender, looking at the knife. ‘Take whatever you want. Just don’t do your Anthony Perkins imitation.’
She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him hard on the lips.
‘Hey, hey. You’re a happily married woman now.’
‘Just claiming my rights. Bride gets to kiss the best man.’ She was the tiniest bit tipsy.
Bond held her away from him, his arms resting on her shoulders. ‘I thought it was the other way around; but no matter. Anything goes.’
‘It certainly does.’ She brandished the knife. ‘It’s time to cut the cake, but where’s the groom? I’ll tell you where the groom is; he’s closeted in his study, and with another woman.’
‘The cad. Want me to get him?’
‘Seriously, James, could you? We really should cut the cake.’
‘Anything for a lady, especially if she’s got a knife.’ He told Lizzie and Pat not to go away, quietly took the cake knife from Della, then went up the stairs to Felix’s study. Reaching the door he tapped and walked straight in.
Felix was sitting at his desk in the centre of the room, operating his computer. Next to him, leaning over his shoulder to look at the screen, was the delightful brunette he had seen outside the church.
They both looked up in surprise, but neither showed any sign of guilt.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know you had . . .’ Bond began.
‘Come on in, James, we’re almost finished.’ He turned to the girl and handed her a sealed envelope. ‘There you go, Pam.’ Then, turning to Bond, ‘James, meet Pam.’
Pam gave him an almost curt, utterly disinterested, nod. She touched Leiter on the shoulder and said, ‘Goodbye, then, Felix. See you around.’ She went to the door without another look at Bond who gave his old friend a quizzical look.
Leiter smiled, ‘Strictly in the line of duty, James. Nice girl but business only.’
‘Business or not, you’ve got a house full of guests and they’re waiting to cut the cake and make lame speeches with slightly risqué jokes. In other words, Della’s on the warpath and sent me to get you.’
Leiter turned to his computer and performed one keystroke. ‘Okay, let me just save this and I’ll be ready to face anyone. Take a seat, I’m afraid the DEA never sleeps and they want a full report yesterday.’
Bond sat, knowing that, even on a wedding day, people like Felix – and himself come to that – had to put their jobs and duty first. Leiter was still talking, ‘I’ve a great deal to thank you for my old friend. Without you, we wouldn’t have got Sanchez. I think I told you he hasn’t been out of his home base in a long time.’
Bond grunted. ‘You couldn’t extradite him from Central America?’
Leiter shook his head. ‘No way. That guy’s intimidated, killed, or bribed most of the government officials from here to Chile. Down there, they have only one law – Sanchez’s law, Plomo o Plata.’
‘Lead or silver,’ Bond quietly translated.
‘Right.’ Leiter closed down his computer and was about to get up when the door burst open and a tough-looking, grey-haired man came barging in, a big cigar clamped between his teeth.
‘Ed!’ Leiter greeted the newcomer with surprised delight. ‘James, meet Ed Killifer, our senior agent down here.’
Killifer seemed to have hardly heard the introduction for he spoke directly to Felix, ‘Double congratulations, old buddy. Great job you did. Now, just you take your time over the honeymoon.’ Then he turned to Bond. ‘Guess you must be James Bond, the guy who went along for the ride?’
Bond made a modest gesture.
‘Some ride
, uh? A great job. Don’t know how to thank you, James.’
‘Give the credit to Felix. Between the three of us I’d rather have my name left out of this.’ He warmed to Killifer, mentally summing him up as one of those hardworking, dedicated, salt-of-the earth agents. A fast disappearing breed from most intelligence, security and drug enforcement organisations.
‘You’ll never credit what that bastard did when we started to interrogate him.’
‘I’d believe anything of Sanchez.’ Felix’s smile had disappeared.
‘The son-of-a-bitch actually said he’d never come to trial. That he had too many people in his pocket. I told him he was facing at least a hundred and thirty-nine felony counts, and none of his famous million-dollar bribes would get him out of this. You know what he said? Two million’s what he said. Cool as an iced beer. Hawkins looked like his socks had been blown off. That scumbag was offering us two million US.’
Bond frowned as Killifer continued, ‘I told him. “None of your filthy money’s gonna get you out of this one, Sanchez. You’re hooked.” ’ Turning to Bond, ‘Hooked! Good huh? I told him straight that he wasn’t in some banana republic now. He just looked at me. Funny kinda look he has. Then he said, “Very righteous, Mr Killifer, but I think I’ll be home very soon.” Some hope. They’ve got a cell set up for him in the high-security block at Quantico and they’re gonna ring the place with Marines. No way is he gonna get out.’
‘Come on, Ed, come and have a drink. We’re just going to cut the cake.’ Leiter was now standing.
‘No, sorry, pal, but I just came over to kiss the bride and wish you luck. I’m still on duty, we’re leaving in half an hour. Everything’s set to take Mr Sanchez to Quantico. We go all the way to Virginia, and I won’t rest till I’ve handed him over.’ He thrust out his hand to Leiter, pumping his arm as though trying to dislodge it from its socket. ‘See you around, buddy, and you take care of that bride.’ He turned and gave Bond a firm, dry handshake. ‘Nice to have met you, Bond. Hope there’ll be another time. See you around, okay?’ He gave an expansive wave with his right hand, the big cigar tucked between his fingers, and left the room.