Zero Minus Ten

EIGHTEEN

THE GOLDEN MILE

27 JUNE 1997, 10:30 A.M., WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Perth is the fastest-growing city in Australia, the capital of the largest and wealthiest state in the country. Western Australia, covering a third of the continent, is comprised of harsh, desolate expanses of the Great Sandy, Gibson, and Great Victoria deserts, caught between the Kimberley Plateau and the Nullarbor Plain—2 1\2 million square kilometres in total. Yet within all this space are a mere 1 1\2 million inhabitants, most of them in or around the relatively youthful city of Perth, located in the southwest coastal region.

Li Xu Wan’s private jet flew into Perth International Airport at mid-morning. It was a pleasant, sunny day. James Bond, with Sunni Pei at his side, had no problem with their counterfeit visas and passports. They passed through Immigration as John Hunter and Mary Ling, then went straight to the Hertz Rent-a-car counter. Bond asked for their best four-wheel drive. Li had even provided Bond with an American Express credit card in the name of John Hunter.

“It’s about a seven-hour drive to Kalgoorlie,” he said to Sunni. His backside was still sore, especially after the long flight, but the herbal treatment Li’s doctor had given him had worked wonders. Besides, Bond wanted the feel of driving on the open highway—it would do him more good than another plane flight.

“Oh, James,” she said. “This is going to be fun. I haven’t taken a road trip since I lived in California!”

“I imagine we’ll find a decent motel in Kalgoorlie, have a good dinner, and rest until early tomorrow. Then I’ll take a look at the EurAsia mining facility.”

“I’m going with you,” she said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight anymore.”

Bond wasn’t sure he wanted her along while he was working. Instead of replying, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. She looked fresh, rested, and very pretty. She was wearing a white blouse with the lower buttons undone and the bottom tied in a knot, exposing her pierced navel. Her blue-jean cutoffs were short, exposing the full length of her splendid legs. As they walked through the airport, Bond noticed other men turning their heads to look at her. He had known many beautiful women in his lifetime, but Sunni was surely one of the most striking.

As for Bond, he had dressed for the warmer climate in a shortsleeved, light blue polo shirt, and navy blue trousers. Although sitting for long periods of time was still uncomfortable, Bond felt 100 per cent better. The mysterious concoction of herbs and ointments which Li’s Chinese doctor had used had been remarkably effective, although he had been extremely sceptical at first. He thought that when he returned to London he might seek out a doctor who practised Chinese herbal medicine.

Hertz provided Bond with a 1995 Suzuki Vitara wagon. It wouldn’t have been his first choice, but it would do. It was a red hard-top, twodoor, short wheel base affair with a part-time four-wheel drive and a 5m/4a transmission. Bond didn’t plan on going “off-road,” as they called it in Australia, as there was a paved highway all the way to Kalgoorlie.

It was lovely country for the first half of the trip, as the land around the vicinity of Perth was rich and fertile. Once they were past Northam, things began to dry out. Even in June, a winter month in Australia, it was quite warm. The scenery turned to golden brown, and Bond felt they had entered an entirely different country. This was the desert, and it wouldn’t do to be stranded on the highway. They had bought a supply of drinking water, and he personally checked out the tyres and running condition of the Vitara before starting out.

As the land grew flat and expansive, traffic thinned out. They felt totally alone.

“This is beautiful,” Sunni said. “I remember going to Las Vegas when I was a child. It was a lot like this.”

Bond nodded. “I’ve been to Vegas myself a few times. I’ve never been here, though.”

A large rabbit scampered across the road.

“There’s something about the desert that is so mysterious,” she said. “It looks as if nothing could live here, yet it is full of life. I wonder if we’ll see any kangaroos?”

They drove in silence for a while. Finally, Sunni asked, “All right. You haven’t said a word about all of this, and we were on that damn’ airplane for ten hours. When are you going to let me in on what’s going on? I know you’re some kind of cop for the British government. What are you doing in Hong Kong? Why are we in Australia now?”

Bond had wondered when she would start asking questions. He didn’t see any reason to keep her in the dark. “You know about the terrorist acts that have been committed in Hong Kong over the last month?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I’m investigating them. At first I thought your Triad was involved, but it wasn’t true. There was a rather impetuous Chinese general up in Guangzhou who is no longer with us—he may have been responsible. I’m checking out one more lead in Kalgoorlie. A major British company has a gold mine there. I have a hunch I’m going to find some things there that will shed more light on the whole situation.”

“Will we be back for the handover?”

“Yes. We have to be. I have an appointment with the Royal Navy on the 30th.”

“And when will we leave Hong Kong? On the 1st of July?”

Bond hesitated. He remembered what M had said.

“I’m not sure yet, Sunni,” he said. “I’m working on that.”

“I can’t wait to get out. England sounds nice, but I will probably go back to America. I’d like to go back to school and study medicine. I think I know enough about the human anatomy to have a head start, what do you think?” She laughed, rubbing her hand along Bond’s leg.

“You’d make a wonderful doctor,” Bond said, smiling. “Your bedside manner is particularly inviting.”

She laughed, then became silent. After a moment, she said, “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve been doing. I had to do it. There are many girls who find themselves in the same situation. It supported me and my mother. I had a nice home. I had money …” Her voice choked as she attempted to hold back tears. Bond put his arm around her, keeping one hand on the wheel.

“Sunni, you’re right,” he said. “You don’t have to justify anything to me. Or to yourself. You did what you had to do.”

“I was exploited,” she said. “I’m damaged goods.”

“No, you’re not,” he said. “You have a strong heart and a good head on your shoulders. You can leave all that behind you.”

“I am anxious to go,” she said. “I have no family ties in Hong Kong anymore.” She was quiet for a few minutes, then wiped away a tear. Bond knew the poor girl hadn’t been able to grieve properly since her mother’s death. Finally, she said, “You’re right. I can start over. Will you help me, James?”

“I’ll do my best, Sunni,” he said truthfully.

By late afternoon, they had entered Australia’s gold fields and driven through the ghost town of Coolgardie, at one time the gold rush capital of Australia. Half an hour later they finally entered the frontier town of Kalgoorlie and its sister suburb Boulder. Kalgoorlie was a semi-thriving place dubbed the “Queen of the Golden Mile,” reputedly the world’s richest square mile of gold-bearing earth. The surrounding land was hot, flat, and terribly arid. If it hadn’t been for the gold rush of the 1890s, the town wouldn’t exist. At one time, there were more than one hundred working mines in the Golden Mile. Kalgoorlie’s gold fields continued to produce during the 1920s but faltered after the war. A big nickel boom in the 1960s brought renewed prosperity and tourism to the town.

The streets were very wide. If it were not for the modern street lights and the cars, the place might have been mistaken for the set of a Hollywood western. The historic main street, Hannan Street, was lined with antiques shops, pubs, hotels, and large buildings that displayed the long-gone wealth and opulence associated with gold frenzy. The side streets were home to all manner of industrial service facilities such as gas and electric providers, bitumen and bobcat services, machinery repair shops, and drilling equipment sales. It was clearly a roughneck, hard-hatted man’s world. Bond now understood why the local law enforcement agencies quietly allowed brothels to prosper along notorious Hay Street, which ran parallel to Hannan Street.

They stopped at the Star and Garter, a motel on Hannan and Nethercott Streets. Bond got a room which was overpriced considering the rustic “quaintness” of the place. Sunni appeared to be extremely happy with it, though.

It had been a long drive and they were hungry. They walked along Hannan Street towards the downtown area until they found a noisy pub. Bond thought he had stepped back in time when he entered the place. It was more like a Wild West saloon than any sort of English pub. The place was full of men, the hard-drinking type, and they all looked like extras from a Crocodile Dundee movie. All conversation halted when they got a look at Sunni and her long legs. Then there was a long, loud whistle, followed by raucous laughter. A barmaid yelled, “That’s enough!”

Bond led Sunni to a table away from the bar and whispered, “Are you all right in here?”

She nodded confidently. “After what I’ve done for a living, nothing can faze me.”

The men at the bar started talking to each other again. Bond overheard the words “Sheila,” “bird,” “skirt,” and “beaut,” all “Strine” words, or Australian slang, meaning an attractive woman or a tart, depending on the context.

The barmaid, who looked as if she had been born during the gold rush, took their order. She was smiling, but her manner was such that she might have thought they were aliens from Mars.

“She’ll be right,” the woman said. Bond took this to mean they needn’t worry. “They’ve been on the piss for a while,” she went on. “Where you from?”

“England,” Bond said.

“You too?” the woman asked Sunni.

“I’m from America,” Sunni replied.

The woman sniffed, then said, “Whadallibe?” Bond, amused, translated this as “What will it be?”

“If you’re hungry, all we got is counter lunch.”

A man at the bar called out a little too loudly, “It’s your shout, Skip!” The man he addressed groaned and ordered a round of drinks for his mates.

“What’s counter lunch?” Sunni asked.

The woman looked at her. “Steak and chips.”

“That’s fine,” Bond said.

The woman scribbled on a notepad. “You get a salad too.”

“We’ll have a couple of pints of beer. I understand you brew your own here.”

“Goodonyamate. Hannan’s—best beer in Western Australia. Two pots, then?”

“Hold it, Mary,” one of the men said. The one that had been addressed as Skip brought over two large mugs of beer. “It was my shout, so our two guests here are included.” He plopped the two mugs down on the table and held out his hand to Bond. “I’m Skip Stewart. Welcome, mate.”

Bond shook his hand. “Thank you. I’m James, and this is Sunni.”

“Sun-ni! ” he said, making a slight bow to her.

Skip Stewart was dressed for the bush, in sturdy boots, moleskins and a grimy cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He also had on an Akubra hat high on his head. Strapped to his right calf was a large knife in a sheath. “What brings you to our fair city?”

“Just passing through,” Bond said.

“Ya know, I can tell you a thing or two about this town,” Stewart said. “My great-grandaddy on my mother’s side was the engineer who first brought water to Kalgoorlie.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s right. C.Y. O’Connor was his name. It was at the turn of the century, during the gold rush …” Stewart took a chair at their table and proceeded to tell his story. Bond didn’t mind, and Sunni was grinning at the man. He was overflowing with local colour.

“Ya see, the miners were dropping like flies what for the lack of water. Drinking water, that is. My great-grandaddy came up with an invention—a wood and pitch water pipe that stretched from Kalgoorlie all the way to Mundaring Weir, near Perth. Nobody thought he would succeed. They all called him a strop, but he kept going. Well, the pipeline was finished and turned on, and after three days—there still weren’t no water yet! My poor great-grandaddy shot himself ’cause he thought he’d failed, eh? But you know what?”

“What?” Sunni asked.

“He didn’t realize that the water would take two weeks to travel that distance, eh? He had solved the problem. A week and a half after he killed himself, water poured out of the pipeline and began to fill up the town’s new reservoir!”

“That’s quite a story,” Bond said.

“It’s true, mate.”

The men at the bar called to Stewart and held up their empty mugs.

“Oh, uhm, it’s your shout, mate,” Stewart said to Bond.

That meant it was Bond’s turn to buy everyone in the bar a drink. “Sure,” he said, and nodded to the barmaid.

Skip Stewart stood up, obviously pleased with Bond’s response to the men’s request. “Goodonyamate. I can tell you’re no two-pot screamer. Hey, if you need anything while you’re here, you don’t hesitate to call on me. I run guided tour packages into the outback. I have four by fours, utes, campers, and dirt bikes. If you need to get somewhere in a hurry, I’ve got a little plane at the airstrip for hire. Rent the plane, you get the pilot for free.”

“Who’s the pilot?” Bond asked.

“You’re lookin’ at him.” Stewart said. He reached into his back pocket, pulled out a business card, and handed it to Bond. It was a little limp and damp from the man’s sweat. “That’s my card, mate. Like I said, call if you need anything. I’ll leave you two to your dinner now.” He took the opportunity to get another eyeful of Sunni, then sauntered back to the bar and rejoined his friends. Bond stuck the man’s card in his pocket and smiled at Sunni. She was enjoying this. The barmaid brought the counter lunch, which consisted of greasy, tough, overcooked steak, and thick, oily french fries. The salad was a couple of lettuce leaves, one piece of sliced tomato, and a slice of tinned beetroot. Bond ate it anyway. Sunni picked at hers.

“We’ll go to a proper restaurant next time,” he promised.

“It’s all right,” she said. “I’m not that hungry. When are we going back to the motel?”

When they got back to the Star and Garter, Sunni bolted the door, turned and leaned back against it. She held her arms out to Bond. Still dressed, he went to her and they embraced. He pressed her against the door with his own hard body. “Oh, darling James,” she moaned as she wrapped her long legs around his waist. He held her, suspended between the door and his torso, thrusting his pelvis between her legs and grinding into her slowly with force. They kissed deeply, forgetting their surroundings and losing themselves in each other.

She unwrapped her legs and moved him towards the bed. They removed their clothes. Because the wounds on his backside and legs were still sensitive, she pulled him on top of her smooth, soft body. She undulated beneath him, rocking against his flesh with a rhythm not unlike the waves in Victoria Harbour. They continued to kiss, all the while exploring each other’s skin with their hands. Eventually she grasped him firmly and guided him inside. Locked together, they moved with passion and anticipation, urging each other on toward the moment of climax that they finally experienced together.

They continued to make love for what seemed like hours. The bed squeaked and the air conditioner rumbled, but at least the room was cool.

ZERO MINUS THREE: 28 JUNE 1997, 5:00 A.M.

“I’m coming with you,” Sunni said, slipping on her shorts and blouse. Bond had already showered and was dressed.

They had got a few hours of sleep after a blissful night. Bond thought he should go to the facility alone, and had hoped he could slip away without waking her.

“Sunni, I don’t know what I’m going to find there. There could be trouble.”

“Oh, stop treating me like a helpless bimbo. I could watch your back. You’ve seen me in action. I’m a Hong Kong girl, remember?”

“All right, but put on something to cover your legs. We’re going down a mine.”

The sun was just beginning to rise as they drove away from the motel and out of town, heading north towards more remote mining towns such as Broad Arrow, Comet Vale, and Leonora. The EurAsia Enterprises facility was about an hour’s drive away.

Many of the mines in Kalgoorlie-Boulder were open pit mines. This meant that the ore was mined and hauled from what was basically a large hole in the ground. The maximum amount of payable ore was moved by the shortest route to the processing plant with the minimum amount of waste. The aptly named “Super Pit” was the largest of this kind in the area, and the city’s gold-mining industry was now primarily centred around it. The Super Pit would eventually swallow the last of the traditional underground mine shafts that could be found in the Golden Mile.

EurAsia’s mining operation was of the old-fashioned underground type. The ore was drilled and blasted by conventional means, leaving a cavern which was partially filled with barren rock from the same mine. The broken ore produced by the blast was carried by haul trucks or rail cars to a primary crusher underground, before being winched to the surface via a shaft. Trucks, loaders, and other vehicles and equipment used underground were dismantled on the surface and lowered in pieces down the shaft. They were then reassembled in workshops cut from the rock beneath the surface. Large headframes, prominent features in the Kalgoorlie-Boulder skyline, were used for hauling ore to the surface or raising and lowering miners and equipment.

The entrance to the facility was just off the highway. A faded sign read “EurAsia Enterprises Australia Pty—Private Property—No Trespassing.” A road led from the paved highway off into the distance. Bond turned into the drive, then moved off the dirt road and travelled along the side of it over the rough terrain.

“What are you doing?” Sunni asked.

“I don’t want to leave fresh tyre treads in the dirt road. No one will notice the tracks out here.”

After ten minutes, the adjacent dirt road opened up into a large gravelled area surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. A closed gate barred entrance to the compound. There was a two-storey, white wooden building just inside the fence. Several 4x4 vehicles and a couple of other standard cars were parked in front. Most notable was the private airstrip alongside the building. A Cessna Grand Caravan single turboprop sat on the runway. Bond thought it was probably used by company executives to get to and from Perth in a hurry. It was the type of plane that was commonly owned by corporations and even private individuals in an area as large as Western Australia.

Bond parked the Vitara behind a clump of eucalyptus trees that he hoped would shield it from sight. He and Sunni got out and moved closer to the fence. Some distance away, on the other side of the white building, was the entrance to the mine. A headframe fifty metres high marked the spot. Two trucks sat on the “decline,” the dirt road that led into the big dark hole. Another small structure stood next to it, most likely a miners’ barracks or storehouse. Two men wearing overalls were walking towards the main building. Bond wondered how many more employees would be present.

From this vantage point, he could see inside the loading bay of the building. Sitting on a flatbed lorry was the dark brown sampan with the red hood that he had last seen at the EurAsia warehouse at Kwai Chung. What the hell was it doing here? Hadn’t the Taitai shipped it to Singapore? That ship couldn’t have travelled as far as Perth in four days. It was very curious—there wasn’t a body of water for miles, and these people had a Chinese boat sitting in the loading bay of a mining operation.

He held the barbed-wire open for them to slip through. They both ran for cover behind a pile of boulders near the mine entrance. When the coast was clear, Bond slipped over to the small structure and listened at the door. There was silence. He gestured for Sunni, and together they entered the small building.

He had been right. It was full of mining tools, hardhats, lockers, and a shower. Bond tossed a pair of overalls to Sunni and put some on himself. They found hardhats that fitted (Sunni tucked her long hair underneath the hat), took a couple of torches and pickaxes, then proceeded out of the door. There was no one in sight. It was probably too early for the miners. If they hurried, they could be in and out before anyone arrived for the beginning of the working day.

Bond and Sunni entered the mine and made their way down the decline into darkness. They switched on the flashlights, revealing a colourless shaft of stone not much higher than Bond’s head. Props were inserted every few yards to support the ceiling. He consulted the map he had found at Kwai Chung.

“We have to travel quite a way to this point here,” he said, referring to a junction some distance away. The decline curved to the left there, while the map showed another passage leading right towards the “Off Limits Area.”

It was about fifteen degrees cooler in the mine, which felt wonderful, but the air was stale and smelled of minerals. They soon came to an area that had recently been excavated. A couple of pickaxes lay on the ground, and the wall to their left had been chipped away. Bond pointed his flashlight at the wall. Streaks of dull brown-yellow spread through the rock.

“See that?” Bond gestured. “That’s gold.”

Sunni was amazed. “Really? It doesn’t look like gold.”

“That’s because gold is never bright and shiny when you first find it. It’s actually quite dull. It’s very soft and malleable, too. The stuff that sparkles is really ‘fool’s gold.’ ”

They moved on further into the mine and finally came to the junction. The passage to the right was so narrow that they had to squeeze through single file. They moved down the tunnel for several minutes until it opened up into a large cavern. Bond consulted the map.

“We’re nearly beneath the main building. They’ve excavated back under the compound. I wonder if they have lifts or something going up to the surface.”

He shone the torch around the room and saw that lights had been installed in the ceiling. Bond found the switch and turned them on. The room was furnished with tables, lockers, chairs, and a vending machine for soft drinks. A large steel door was built into the far wall, with a sign reading “Off Limits Area. Danger: Radiation.” There was a small porthole in the door. Bond walked over to it and looked inside. It was some kind of airlock, for another steel door was just a few feet away.

Radiation? What was behind that steel door? Bond’s heart suddenly started to race. What had he stumbled on? Had he found the source of the Australian nuclear explosion? Could this possibly be the answer?

He turned quickly and searched the lockers. They were full of radiation-resistant body suits. He took one and put it on.

“Wait here,” he told Sunni. “I’m going inside.”

“Be careful,” was all she said. She was getting a little nervous now.

Bond found the airlock controls easily enough and opened the outer door. He stepped inside and closed it behind him. He then opened the inner door and stepped into another mine shaft. He flicked on an electric generator which powered up some lights. Bond studied the rock walls and found no traces of gold. Instead, he saw net-like veins of a dull, black, sooty material that was neither smooth nor craggy. He didn’t need a Geiger counter to identify the oxide. EurAsia Enterprises was mining uranium!

He followed the passage into another large work area, this one set up more like a laboratory. A lift had been installed here, and Bond presumed it went up into the main building on the surface. There were also other large machines in the room, and Bond thought they might be the reactors that converted the non-fissionable uranium-238, or natural uranium, into uranium-235, which was the material used in atomic bombs. He knew that natural uranium contained both isotopes, but usually only 0.6 per cent of the material was the fissionable U-235.

A U-235 atom was so unstable that a blow from a single neutron was enough to split it and bring on a chain reaction. When a U-235 atom was split, it would give off energy in the form of heat and Gamma radiation, which was the most dynamic form of radioactivity and the most lethal. The split atom would also emit two or three spare neutrons that would fly out with sufficient force to split other atoms they came in contact with. In theory, it was necessary to split only one U-235 atom, and the neutrons from this one would split other atoms, which would split more … and so on. All of this happened within a millionth of a second. Bond knew that the minimum amount to start a chain reaction was known as Super Critical Mass.

It only took the materials, the recipe, and a certain amount of expertise to make a bomb. Bond saw that the first two of these elements were in this room, and someone obviously had the necessary skill.

The big question in Bond’s mind was whether Guy Thackeray himself had been involved at all. The man was dead, but this facility was obviously still operating. Who was behind it?

In the centre of the room, on a steel table, was a metal object that resembled a large skittle. On closer examination, Bond knew it was a bomb that was almost complete. The top of the device had been removed. It was the section that held the detonator and fuse which would be used to set off the chain reaction. A hollow cylinder of U-235 was inside the device. The missing section would contain another phallic-shaped portion of U-235 which would be injected by a plunger into the cylinder, thereby causing Super Critical Mass. The detonator that fired the plunger was activated by a fuse set to a timer, not an altimeter. This bomb was going to be placed somewhere, not dropped from an aeroplane.

He had to get out of there and contact London immediately. Bond could handle M’s displeasure that he had disobeyed orders and left Hong Kong. If she suspended him, so be it. At least he had found the source of the nuclear “accident.” Now if he only knew who was behind it and what their motives were …

Bond switched off the lights, went back through the passage, and opened the door to the airlock. He closed it behind him, then opened the outer door.

He stepped into the room where he’d left Sunni and got the shock of his life.

The three albino Chinese thugs, the ones he’d dubbed Tom, Dick, and Harry, stood facing him, armed with pistols. Harry held Sunni, with his hand over her mouth.

It was the fourth man in the room who took Bond completely by surprise.

“Did you find what you were looking for, Mr. Bond?” asked Guy Thackeray, alive and well and looking very fit.