They went through Nyon, the houses clustered together on the lake as though clinging to each other to save themselves from falling in. Soon afterwards, Geneva came into view at the western end of the lake, a misty blur of buildings with a toy steamer ploughing a lone furrow of spray, chugging across the water. It all looked as peaceful as ever.
They also met the first police checkpoint, the cars slowing almost to a standstill before the sharp-eyed uniformed men waved them on.
There was a second road block just before they turned inland. A car and two policemen on motorcycles started to flag them down, until they spotted the Goodyear stickers. They were waved on with smiles. As Bond looked back, he saw one of the men talking into a radio. As he had imagined, the police were assisting innocently in the events planned to take place over the lake in a few hours’ time.
The great cleft in the mountains seemed to widen as they climbed away. The sun was up now, and you could clearly see tiny farmhouses on the slopes. Then suddenly the valley floor and the tiny landing strip appeared just below them, the grass a painted green, the control tower, hangar and one other building as neat and unreal as a film set. Out on the grass, two mountain rescue aircraft stood like stranded birds. At the far end of the field the sausage shape of the Goodyear airship Europa swung lazily, tethered to her low portable masthead.
Then the road dipped, the airfield disappeared, and they were twisting through the S-bends which would carry them to the final destination.
Before the two cars reached the valley floor and the airstrip two more police checkpoints were negotiated. The Swiss police had certainly snapped into action. London, Bond decided, would feel very satisfied, content that nothing untoward could now happen by the peaceful lakeside.
There were no less than three police cars at the airstrip entrance, which was little more than a metal gateway set into an eight-foot chain-link fence, encircling the entire area. In the distance, a police car patrolled the perimeter slowly and as thoroughly as only the Swiss perform their official duties.
As the Audis drew up, Bond saw two more faces which he recognised from Erewhon. This time, though, the men were dressed in smart suits and smiled broad, almost ingratiating smiles as the two-vehicle convoy came to a halt. They exchanged a few words with the senior policeman on the gate, and the cars were waved forward. One man got into each car.
The man who entered Holy’s car was a German, fair-haired, suspicious, and with features cut from a solid block of rough stone. He appeared to be in his mid-twenties, and the smart suit bulged around the breast pocket. Bond did not like the look of him. He liked him even less when the talking started.
Holy confined himself to the most pertinent questions, and was given precise, military answers in an American accent.
Posing as the Goodyear head of PR, Rudi, the German, had taken the call from Bill Tanner, which he now described in detail, saying the man was certainly English, and also undoubtedly represented one of the major British security agencies. The police, he said, began to arrive within half an hour of his call.
Jay Autem then asked about times, and you could tell from his expression he had already worked out that the enquiries had begun while Bond was in the Foreign Office house off Northumberland Avenue.
‘James, you didn’t say anything indiscreet when you were with your friend Anthony Denton?’
The two cars were heading not for the little office building but for the hangar, with its two slab-winged observation-rescue Pilatus aircraft sitting outside.
‘Me?’ Bond looked surprised and startled, as though he had not been paying attention to the conversation. ‘Indiscreet? How? Why?’
Holy looked at him, a shadow of concern crossing his face.
‘You see, James, Tamil’s people took over this airstrip, and the whole organisation here, in the early hours of yesterday morning. Nobody suspected, there was no trouble. Not until last night, when you were closeted with the DSOFO, obtaining the EPOC frequency for us. Why, I ask myself, should the authorities begin to take an interest at that time of night?’
Bond shrugged, indicating that he had no idea, and, in any case, it was nothing to do with him.
The cars came to a halt. ‘I do hope you’ve given us the correct frequency, James. If you haven’t . . . Well, I’ve already warned you of the consequences; consequences for the entire world, my friend . . .’
‘That’s the current EPOC frequency. Have no doubt, Dr Holy,’ he snapped back.
Holy winced at the sound of his real name, then nodded as he leaned forward to open the door.
Bond was left with the Arab boy, who watched him with alert bright eyes, a small Walther automatic clutched in his right hand. The safety catch, Bond noticed, was off.
Simon, Holy and the German, Rudi, were joined by Rahani and General Zwingli – a little procession walking spryly towards the hangar. Rahani’s men were everywhere, Bond now saw, spread out, half concealed by what cover they could find, with a full armament of carbines and automatic weapons. There were even two guards on the small door inserted in one of the great sliding doors of the hangar.
The door was opened, and the party stepped inside. Two minutes later, Simon came out, walking quickly to the car.
‘Colonel Rahani wants you inside.’
His manner was one of indifference, the attitude of a man who does not wish to become involved with anyone outside his own tight comradeship. Bond recognised the psychology. He had studied the whole subject of terrorist mentality and he knew they had come to some cut-off point. Simon was not willing to have any kind of relationship with Bond now. It could be, he thought, as they walked the few paces towards the hangar, that this really is the end. They’ve decided I’ve talked, and there can be no trust from now on. Curtain time – the fiction meeting the reality.
The little group of senior men stood just inside the door, and it was Tamil Rahani who greeted him.
‘Ah, Commander Bond. We thought you should see this.’ He gestured towards the centre of the hangar.
About forty men sat close together on the floor, held in a tight knot by three tripod-mounted machine guns trained on them, each with a crew of four.
‘These are the good men from Goodyear.’ He split the Goodyear, as though trying a pun. ‘They will remain here until our mission is completed. They will be quickly dispatched – all of them – if one person makes an attempt to break out. They are being fed and looked after by the other team.’ He indicated four men placed between the guns. ‘It is uncomfortable for them. But if all goes well, they will be released unharmed. You will notice there is one lady.’
From the middle of the group, Cindy Chalmer gave Bond a wan smile, and Tamil Rahani lowered his voice. ‘Between ourselves, Commander Bond, I think the delightful Miss Chalmer does not have much chance of surviving. But we want no bloodshed yet; not even your blood. You see, it was SPECTRE’S intention that you should be put with this group of prisoners once you’d fulfilled your mission. The representative from SPECTRE did not trust you from the start, and is not at all happy with you now. However . . .’ His lips drew back, not into a smile, but rather in a straight thin slash across his face. ‘However, I think you can be of use in the airship. You can fly, can’t you? You have a pilot’s licence?’
Bond nodded, adding that he had no experience of airships.
‘You’ll only be the co-pilot. The one who sees to it that the pilot does as he’s told. There’ll be a nice irony in it, if by any chance you have doubled on us, Commander Bond. Come!’
They returned to the cars and drove swiftly over the few hundred yards to the office building. Inside, around forty of Rahani’s trained men from Erewhon were sitting around, smoking and drinking coffee.
‘Our handling team, Commander Bond. They have learned by simulation. At Erewhon. It was something we did not show you, but they are very necessary when we weigh out the airship before takeoff – and, to a great extent, when we get back from our short excursion.’
The onl
y man who was out of place sat at a table just inside the door. He wore a navy blue pilot’s uniform, and his peaked cap lay on the table in front of him. One of Rahani’s men sat opposite, well clear of the table, with an Uzi machine pistol ready to blow the man’s stomach out should he make a fuss.
‘You are our pilot, I presume?’ Rahani smiled politely at the man, who looked at him coldly and said he was a pilot, but he would not fly under duress.
‘I think you will,’ Rahani said confidently. ‘What do we call you?’
‘You call me Captain,’ the pilot replied.
‘No. We’re all friends here. Informal.’ Rahani added in a commanding snap: ‘Your first name.’
The pilot realised it would be foolhardy to remain too stubborn. He cocked his head on one side.
‘Okay, you can call me Nick.’
‘Right, Nick . . .’ Tamil Rahani carefully explained what was going to happen. Nick was to fly the airship, just as he would have done under normal circumstances. Up to Geneva and along the lake front. After that he would change course, cutting straight over Le Richemond Hotel – ‘Where the Summit Conference is in progress. You will stay over the hotel for approximately four minutes.’ Rahani spoke like an officer used to being obeyed. ‘Four minutes at the outside. No more. Nothing will happen. Nobody will be hurt as long as you do what you’re told. After that, you will bring the airship back here and land. You may then leave unharmed.’
‘Damned if I will.’
‘I think you will, Nick. Someone else will do it if you don’t. This gentleman here, for instance.’ He touched Bond’s shoulder. ‘He’s a pilot, without airship experience, but he will do it if we give him enough encouragement. Our encouragement to you is that we kill you straight away, here and now, if you don’t agree.’
‘He means it, Nick,’ Bond interrupted. ‘In a couple of minutes you’ll just be a lump of meat. Useless to anyone. Best do as he says.’
The pilot thought for a moment, recognising his inescapable position.
‘Okay. Okay, I’ll fly the blimp.’
‘Good, Nick. And thank you, Commander Bond.’ Rahani went on in a level voice, ‘Now I’ll tell you what we have in store for Commander Bond. He is to be your co-pilot. You will tell him now about the differences between flying an aircraft and handling an airship. We shall give him one round of ammunition for his automatic pistol. One round only. He can wound or kill only one person with that, and there’ll be five of us on board; five, not counting Commander Bond and yourself. Bond here will do exactly as I tell him. If you try to be clever, I shall tell him to kill you. If he does not kill you, one of us will do it for him, and force him to take over. If he still resists, then we’ll kill him too, and manage the best we can. I understand that this airship is filled with helium and ballasted so that it will stay up, unassisted, for some time, and is difficult to crash. Yes?’
‘Guess you’re right.’
‘Well, Commander Bond will look after you, and we’ll all have a pleasant trip. How long will it take? Half an hour?’
‘About that. Maybe three-quarters.’
‘Commander Bond, talk to your pilot. Learn from him. We have things to get on board the gondola.’ He gave Bond a hard knock on the shoulder. ‘Learn, and do as you are bidden, eh?’
Bond lowered his head as he sat down, letting it come near the pilot’s, his lips hardly moving. ‘I’m working under some duress as well. Just help me. We have to stop them.’ Then he said aloud, ‘Okay Nick, just tell me about this ship.’
The pilot looked up, puzzled for a moment, but Bond nodded encouragement, and he began to talk.
Around them, Rahani’s men were carrying equipment out of the office. Among the hardware was one powerful shortwave transmitter and a micro. Bond listened attentively as Nick told him that flying the airship was more or less the same as handling an aircraft.
‘Yoke, rudder pedals, same flight instruments, throttles for the two little engines. The only difference is in trimming.’ He explained how the two small balloons, fore and aft in the helium-filled envelope, could be inflated with air, or have the air valved off. ‘It’s more or less the same principle as a balloon, except, with the air-filled ballonets, you don’t have to bleed off expensive gas. You just take on or dump air. The ballonets take care of the gas pressure, give you extra lift, or allow you to trim up or down. The only tricky bit is knowing when to dump the pressure as you come in to land, positioning the blimp, so that the ground crew can grab at the guy ropes. You need to bleed it all off at that point, like dumping ballast, so nobody gets lifted off the ground.’
It was all technically straightforward, and Nick even made a little drawing to show Bond where the valves lay, above the forward windshield, and how the ballonets were filled with air from scoops below the small engines. He had hardly finished when Simon came over, glancing at his watch. They looked up, to find the office almost deserted.
‘You’re both needed at the ship.’ He held up one round of 9mm ammunition, and Bond saw that it was one of his original Glaser slugs. ‘You get this when we’re aboard.’ His eyes showed no sympathy. ‘Come along, then. We’ve got to show the flag. One joy ride around the lake.’
Over at the airship, Rahani’s men had prepared themselves to take up the strain on the forward guy ropes hanging from the great pointed sausage of the airship, which at the moment remained tethered to its mooring mast.
As they reached the ship, they could see the others were already on board the curved gondola, which seemed to hang under the great gleaming envelope.
Nick climbed up first through the large door which took up a third of the gondola’s right-hand side. Bond followed, with Simon taking up the rear and pulling the door closed behind him.
Tamil Rahani sat next to Holy at the back of the gondola. In front of them they had arranged the transmitters linked to the computer. The Arab boy sat directly in front of Holy, with General Zwingli across the narrow aisle from him. Bond went forward, taking his place on Nick’s right. Simon now hovered between them.
As soon as he was in his seat, Nick became the complete professional, showing Bond the instrumentation, and pointing out the all-important valves for the ballonets.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ Rahani called out, but Nick did not answer. He was busy with the pre-flight checks, sliding his window open to shout down to the man in command of the ground crew.
‘Okay,’ he called. ‘Tell your boys to stand by. I’m starting up, and I’ll give you a thumbs-up when they have to take strain.’ To Bond, he said he would be starting the port engine first, and immediately afterwards the starboard would fire. ‘We fill the ballonets straight away, and as they’re filling I shall release us from the mooring mast. The chaps outside, if they’ve been trained correctly, will take the strain and dump the ballast hanging from the gondola. After that, I trim the ship, lift the nose and,’ he turned, grinning, ‘we’ll see if they have the sense to let go of the guy ropes.’
Reaching forward, Nick started both engines, one after the other, very fast, and set the air valves to fill. As Bond watched, Simon leaned forward, felt inside his jacket and removed the ASP. There was a double click as one round went into the breech, then the weapon was handed back. ‘You kill him, if the Colonel gives the order. If you try anything clever, I’ll shoot you.’
Bond did not even acknowledge him. By now he was following everything that Nick was doing, opening the throttles, pulling the lever that moored them to the mast, monitoring the pressure.
The airship’s nose tilted upwards, and Nick waved to the ground crew as he gave the engines full throttle. The nose slid higher and there was a tiny sensation of buoyancy, then, very slowly they moved forwards and upwards – rock-steady, no tremor or vibration as they climbed away from the field. It was like riding on a magic carpet.
19
PLOUGHSHARE
In his time James Bond had either flown, or flown in, most types of aircraft, from the old Tiger Moth biplane to Phantom jets
. Yet never had he experienced anything like the Europa.
The morning was clear and sunny. With its two little engines humming like a swarm of hornets, its single-blade wooden airscrews blurring into twin discs, the fat silver ship glided out from the wide cleft in the mountains, over the road and railway lines, and climbed above the lake. It would have been an enchanted moment for anyone, like Bond, who loved machines. At a thousand feet, gazing out at the spectacular view of lake and mountains he even forgot for a few seconds the horrifying and dangerous mission they were embarked upon.
It was the stability of the ship that amazed him most. There was a complete lack of any buffeting experienced at that height and over that type of terrain in a conventional aircraft. No wonder those who travelled on the great airships of the 1920s and 1930s fell in love with them.
The Europa dipped its nose, almost stood on it, turning a full circle. At fifteen hundred feet they had a panoramic view of the lake: the mountain peaks touched with snow against the light blue sky, Montreux in the distance, the French side of the lake with the town of Thonon looking peaceful and inviting.
Then Nick eased the ship around so that they could see Geneva as they approached at a stately fifty miles per hour.
Bond turned his head to look at the rear of the gondola. Rahani and Jay Autem Holy ignored the view, hunched over the transmitter. They had folded down some of the seat backs, so that Bond had a good view of the radio, seeing that it was linked to the micro.
Holy appeared to be muttering to himself as he tuned to the frequency. Rahani watched him closely, like a warder, Bond thought. General Zwingli was half-turned in his seat, giving advice. Both Simon and the Arab boy stood guard, the boy never taking his eyes off the pilot and Bond. Simon was leaning against the door, almost as though he were covering his masters.
Below them, the lakeside of Geneva slid into view. The airship slowed, tilted forward and turned gently.