Nobody Lives for Ever

17

SHARK ISLAND

The deck in front of the Havana Docks bar at the Pier House is made of wooden planks, raised on several levels and has metal chairs and tables arranged to give visitors the impression that they are on board a ship at anchor. Globe lights on poles stand at intervals along the heavy wooden guard rail. It is perhaps the best vantage point in Key West, from which to watch the sun setting over the sea.

The deck was crowded and there was a buzz of light-hearted chatter. The lights had come on, attracting swarms of insects around the globes. Someone was playing Mood Indigo on the piano. The rails were lined with tourists eager to capture the sunset with their cameras.

As the clear sky turned to a deeper navy blue, so an occasional speedboat crossed in front of the hotel, while a light aircraft buzzed a wide circuit, its lights flashing. To the left, along the wide Mallory Square which fronts on to the ocean, jugglers, conjurers, fire eaters and acrobats performed amid a crush of people. It was the same on every fine night, a celebration of the day’s end and a look towards the pleasures the night might bring.

James Bond sat at a table and gazed out to sea past the two dark green humps of Tank and Wisteria Islands. If he had any sense he would be on a boat or aeroplane moving out, he thought. He was fully aware of the danger close at hand. There could be no doubt that Tarquin Rainey was Tamil Rahani, Blofeld’s successor and that this could well be his last chance to smash SPECTRE once and for all.

‘Isn’t this absolutely super,’ said Sukie delightedly. ‘There really is nothing like it in the whole world.’

It was not clear whether she was talking about the huge shrimps they were eating with that very special tangy, hot red sauce, their Calypso Daiquiris, or the beautiful view.

The sun appeared to grow larger as it dropped slowly behind Wisteria Island, throwing a huge patch of blood-red light across the sky.

Above them, a US Customs helicopter clattered its way, running from south to north, red and green lights twinkling on and off as it turned, heading towards the naval air station. Bond wondered if SPECTRE had become involved in the huge drug traffic which was reported to pass into America by this route – landing on isolated sections of the Florida Keys, to be taken inland and distributed. The Navy and Customs kept a very close eye on places like Key West.

A cheer went up, echoed from the crowd further up the coastline on Mallory Square, as the sun finally plunged into the sea, filling the whole sky with deep scarlet for a couple of minutes before the velvet darkness took over.

‘What’s the deal, James?’ Nannie asked in almost a whisper.

They drew together, their heads lowered over the seafood. He told them that until midnight, at least, they should all be seen around.

‘We’ll stroll out into town, have dinner somewhere, and then come back to the hotel. Afterwards I want us each to leave separately. Don’t use the car, and keep an eye out for anyone following you. Nannie, you’re trained in this kind of thing so you can brief Sukie, tell her the best way to avoid suspicion. I have my own plans. The most important thing is that we rendezvous at Garrison Bight, aboard Prospero, around one in the morning. Okay?’

Bond noticed a small furrow of concern between Nannie’s eyes. ‘What then?’ she asked.

‘Has Sukie looked at the charts?’

‘Yes and it’s not the easiest trip by night.’ Sukie’s eyes were expressionless. ‘It’s a challenge, though. The sandbars are not well marked and we’ll have to show a certain amount of light to begin with. Once we’re beyond the reef it’s not too bad.’

‘Just get me to within a couple of kilometres of the island,’ Bond said with a hint of authority, looking straight into her eyes.

They finished their drinks and rose to leave, sauntering casually from the deck. At the door to the bar, Bond paused and asked the others to wait for a moment. He went back to the rails and looked down into the sea. Earlier he had noticed the hotel’s little pull-start speed boat making trips close to the beach. It was still there, tied up between the wooden piles of the pier. Smiling to himself, he rejoined Sukie and Nannie, and they went through the bar, where the pianist was now playing Bewitched. A small dance floor had been set up on the beach, and a threeman combo had started to pound out rhythms. The paths were lit by shaded lamps, and people were still swimming, diving into the floodlit pool, laughing with pleasure.

They strolled, arms linked – one on each side of Bond – down Duval, looking at shop windows and peering into the restaurants, all apparently full to capacity. A crowd stood in front of the light grey, English-looking church, staring across the road at half a dozen youngsters who were breakdancing to the music of a ghetto-blaster in front of Fast Buck Freddie’s Department Store.

Eventually, they retraced their footsteps and found themselves in front of Claire, a restaurant that looked both busy and exceptionally good. They walked up to the maître d’, who was hovering by a tall desk in the small garden outside the main restaurant.

‘Boldman,’ said Bond. ‘Party of three. Eight o’clock.’

The maître d’ consulted his book, looked troubled and asked when the booking had been made.

‘Yesterday evening,’ Bond said with conviction.

‘There seems to be some error, Mr Boldman . . .’ the bemused man retorted, a little too firmly for Bond’s liking.

‘I reserved the table specially. It’s the only night we can make this week. I spoke to a young man last night and he assured me I had the table.’

‘Just one moment, sir.’ The maître d’ disappeared into the restaurant and they could see him in agitated conversation with one of the waiters. Finally he came out, smiling. ‘You’re lucky, sir. We’ve had an unexpected cancellation . . .’

‘Not lucky,’ Bond said with his jaw clenched. ‘We had a table reserved. You’re simply giving us our table.’

‘Of course, sir.’

They were shown to a corner table in a pleasant white room. Bond took a seat with his back to the wall and a good view of the entrance. The tablecloths were paper, and there were packets of crayons beside each plate. Bond doodled, drawing a skull and crossbones. Nannie had sketched something vaguely obscene, in red. She leaned forward.

‘I haven’t spotted anyone. Are we being watched?’

‘Oh yes,’ Bond said with a knowing smile as he opened the large menu. ‘Two of them, working each side of the street. Possibly three. Did you notice the man in a yellow shirt and jeans, tall, black and with a lot of rings on his fingers? The other’s a little chap, dark trousers, white shirt, with a tattoo on his left arm – mermaid being indecent with a swordfish, by the look of it. He’s across the street now.’

‘Got ‘em,’ Nannie said as she turned to her menu.

‘Where’s the third?’ asked Sukie.

‘An old blue Buick. Big fellow at the wheel, alone and cruising. Not easy to tell, but he’s been up and down the street a lot. So have others, but he was the only one who didn’t seem to take any interest in people on the sidewalks. I’d say he was the backup. Watch out for them.’

A waiter appeared and took their order. They all chose Conch chowder, the Thai beef salad and, inevitably, Key lime pie. They drank a Californian champagne, which slightly offended Bond’s palate. They talked constantly, keeping off their plans for the night.

When they were out on the street again, Bond told them to be wary.

‘I want you both there, on board and with nobody on your backs, by one o’clock.’

As they walked west towards the Front Street intersection, the man in the yellow shirt kept well back on the other side of the street. The tattooed man let them pass him, then overtook them and let them pass again before they got back to the Pier House. The blue Buick had cruised by twice, and was parked outside the Lobster House, almost opposite the main entrance to the hotel.

‘They have us well staked out,’ Bond murmured as they crossed the street and walked up the drive to the main entrance. There they made a great show of saying goodnight.

Bond was taking no chances. As soon as he got to his room he checked the old, well-tried traps he had laid. The slivers of matchstick were still wedged into the doors of the clothes cupboards and the threads on the drawers were unbroken. His luggage was also intact. It was ten-thirty, time to move. He doubted if SPECTRE’S surveillance team would expect anyone to make a move before the early hours. He had not let the others know that he had slipped the spare charts from Prospero inside his jacket before they left the boat that afternoon. Now he spread them out on the round glass table in the centre of his sitting room and began to study the course from Garrison Bight to Shark Island, making notes. When he was satisfied that he had all the compass bearings correct, and a very good idea of how he could guide a boat to within safe distance of the island, Bond began to dress for action.

He peeled off the T-shirt and wriggled into a light black cotton rollneck from his case. The jeans were replaced by a pair of black slacks, which he always packed. Next, he took out the wide belt which had been so useful when Der Haken had him locked up in Salzburg. He removed the Q Branch Toolkit and spread the contents out on the table. He checked the small explosive charges and their electronic connectors, adding from the false bottom of his second briefcase four small flat packets of plastique explosive, each no larger than a stick of chewing gum. Into the inner pockets of the belt he fitted four small lengths of fuse, some extra thin electric wire, half a dozen tiny detonators, a miniature pin-light torch, not much larger than the filter of a cigarette – and one other very important item.

Together the explosives would not dispose of an entire building, but they could be useful with locks or door hinges. He buckled on the belt, threading it through the loops on his trousers, then opened up the shoulder bag which contained the wet suit and snorkelling equipment. Sweating a little, he struggled into the wet suit and clipped the knife into place on the belt. The ASP, two spare magazines, the charts and the baton he put into the waterproof pouch threaded on to the belt. He carried the flippers, mask, underwater torch and snorkel in the shoulder bag.

Leaving the suite, he kept inside the hotel for as long as possible. There was still a great deal of noise coming from the bars, restaurant and makeshift dance floor and he finally emerged through an exit on the ocean side of the festivities.

Squatting down with his back against the wall, Bond unzipped the shoulder bag and pulled on the flippers, then slowly edged himself towards the water. The music and laughter were loud behind him as he climbed over the short stretch of rock marking the right-hand boundary of the hotel bathing area. He washed the mask out, slipped it on and adjusted the snorkel. Grasping the torch, he slid straight down into the water. He swam gently round the metal shark guard which protected swimmers using the hotel beach. It took about ten minutes to find the thick wooden piles under the Havana Docks bar deck, but he surfaced only a couple of metres from the moored motor boat.

Any sound he made clambering aboard would not have been heard above the noise coming from the hotel, and once inside the neat little craft, he could quickly check the fuel gauges with the pin-light torch. The beach staff were efficient and the tank had been filled, presumably ready for the next morning’s work.

He cast off using his hands to manoeuvre the speed boat from under the pier. He then allowed it to drift, occasionally guiding it with the flat of his hand in the water, heading north, into the Gulf of Mexico, silently passing the Standard Oil pier.

The boat was about a kilometre and a half out when Bond switched on the riding lights. He moved aft to prime and start the motor. It fired at the first pull, and he had to scramble quickly forward and swing himself behind the wheel, one hand on the throttle. He opened up, glancing down at the small luminous dial on the compass, and silently thanked the Pier House for the care they took in keeping the boat in order.

Minutes later, he was cruising carefully along the coast, fumbling with the pouch to pull out the charts and take his first visual fix. He could not risk running the speed boat at anywhere approaching its full speed. The night was clear, and the moon was up, but Bond still had to peer into the dark water ahead. He spotted the exit point from Garrison Bight and began negotiating the tricky sandbars, cruising slowly, occasionally feeling the shallow draught of the boat touch the sand. Twenty minutes later he cleared the reef and set course for Shark Island.

Ten minutes passed, then another ten, before he caught a glimpse of lights. Soon afterwards he cut the engine and drifted in towards shore. The long dark slice of land stood out against the horizon, twinkling with lights from buildings set among trees. He leaned over, washed out his mask again, took up the torch, and, for the second time that night, dropped into the sea.

He remained on the surface for a while, judging that he was a couple of kilometres offshore. Then he heard the drumming of engines and saw a small craft rounding the island to his left, searching the waters with a powerful spotlight. Tamil Rahani’s regular patrol, he thought. There would be at least two boats like this keeping a constant vigil. He took in air and dived, swimming steadily but conserving energy against any emergency.

He surfaced twice on the way in, to discover the second time that they had found the speed boat. The patrol craft had stopped and voices drifted over the water. He was less than a kilometre from shore and he was concerned now about the possibility of meeting sharks. The island would hardly be named after the creatures were they not known to haunt its vicinity.

Suddenly he came up against the heavy wire mesh of shark guard, around sixty metres from the beach. Clinging on to the strong metal, he could see lights shining brightly from picture windows in a large house. There were floodlights in the grounds. Looking back, he saw the spotlight from the patrol boat and heard its engine rise again. They were coming to look for him.

He heaved himself up on to the metal bar that topped the protective fence. One flipper caught awkwardly in the mesh, and he lost a few precious seconds disentangling himself before finally lowering his body into the water on the far side.

Again, he dived deep, swimming a little faster now that he was almost there. He had gone about ten metres when instinct warned him of danger: something was close by in the water. Then the bump jarred his ribs, throwing him to one side.

Bond turned his head and saw swimming beside him, as though keeping station with him, the ugly, wicked snout of a bull shark. The protective fence was not there to keep the creatures out but to make sure that an island guard of sharks remained close inshore – the favourite hunting ground of the dangerous bull shark.

The shark had bumped him but had not attempted to turn and attack, which meant that it was either well fed or had not yet sized up Bond as an enemy. He knew his only salvation was to remain calm, not to antagonise the shark, and certainly not knowingly to transmit fear – though he was probably doing that at the moment.

Still keeping pace with the shark, he slid his right hand down to the knife handle, his fingers closing around it, ready to use the weapon at a second’s notice. He knew that on no account must he drop his legs. If he did that, the shark would recognise him immediately as prey, and the bull shark could move like a racing boat. The most dangerous moment lay ahead, and not very far ahead, when he reached the beach. There Bond would be at his most vulnerable.

As he felt the first touch of sand under his belly, he was aware of the shark dropping back. He swam on until his flippers began to churn sand. In that moment, he knew the shark was behind him, probably even beginning to build up speed for the strike.

Later Bond thought that he had seldom moved as quickly in water. He gave a last mighty push forward, bringing his feet down, then he raced for the beach, in an odd splayfooted, hopping run made necessary by the flippers. He reached the surf and rolled to the left just in time. The bull shark’s snout, jaws wide and snapping, broke through the foaming water, missing him by inches.

Bond continued to roll, trying to propel himself forward, for he had heard of bull sharks coming right out of the water to attack. Two metres up the beach, he lay still, panting, feeling his stomach reel with a stab of fear.

Instantly his subconscious told him to move. He was on the island, and heaven alone knew with what other guardians SPECTRE had surrounded their headquarters. He kicked off the flippers and ran forward, crouching, to the first line of palms and undergrowth. There he squatted to take stock. First he had to dump the mask, snorkel and flippers. He pushed them under some bushes. The air was balmy and the sweet smell of night-blooming tropical flowers came to his nostrils.

He could detect no sounds of movement coming from the grounds, which were well-lit and laid out with paths, small water gardens, trees, statues and flowers. A low murmur of voices came from the house. It was built like a pyramid lifted high above the ground on great polished steel girders. He could make out three storeys, each with a metal balcony running around the whole of the building. Some of the large picture windows were partly open, others had curtains drawn across them. On top of the building a forest of communications aerials stretched up like some avant-garde sculpture.

Gently, Bond reached into the waterproof pouch and drew out the ASP, slipping off the safety catch. He was breathing normally now, and using the trees and statues for cover he moved stealthily and silently towards the huge modern pyramid. As he got closer, he saw there were several ways into the place. A giant spiral staircase running up through the centre and three sets of metal steps, one on each side, which zig-zagged from one balcony to the next.

He crossed the last piece of open ground and stood to listen for a moment. The voices had ceased; he thought he could hear the patrol boat, far out to sea. Nothing else.

Bond began to climb the open zig-zagging stairs to the first level, his feet touching the fretted metal noiselessly, his body held to the left so that his right hand, clutching the ASP, was constantly ready. Standing on the first terrace, he waited, his head cocked. Just ahead of him there was a large sliding picture window, the curtains only partially drawn, and one section open. He crossed to the window and peered in.

The room was white, furnished with glass tables, soft white armchairs, and valuable modern paintings. A deep pile white carpet covered the floor. In the centre was a large bed, with electronic controls that could adjust any section to any angle, to improve the comfort of the patient who now lay in it.

Tamil Rahani was propped up with silk-covered pillows, his eyes closed, and his head turned to one side. Despite the shrunken face with skin the colour of parchment, Bond recognised him immediately. On their previous meetings, Rahani had been smooth, short and dapper, attractive in a military kind of way. Now the heir to the Blofeld fortune was reduced to this human doll, dwarfed by the seductive luxury of the high-tech bed.

Bond slid open the window, and stepped inside. Moving like a cat to the end of the bed, he gazed down on the man who controlled SPECTRE.

Now I can have him, he thought. Now, why not? Kill him now and you may not ruin SPECTRE, but at least you’ll decapitate it – just as its leader wants you decapitated.

Taking a deep breath, Bond raised the ASP. He was only a few steps from Rahani’s head. One squeeze of the trigger and it would be obliterated, and he could be away, hiding in the grounds until he found a way to get off the island.

As he began to squeeze the trigger, he thought he felt a small gust of air on the back of his head.

‘I don’t think so, James. We’ve brought you too far to let you do what God’s going to do soon enough.’ The voice came from behind him.

‘Just drop the gun, James. Drop it, or you’ll be dead before you can even move.’

He was stunned by the voice. The ASP fell with a noisy thump to the floor and Tamil Rahani stirred and groaned in his sleep.

‘Okay, you can turn around now.’

Bond turned to look at Nannie Norrich, who stood in the window, an Uzi machine pistol held against her slim hip.