Devil May Care

A bottle of Bollinger Grande Année 1953 and some red wine – Château Batailley. A friend of mine introduced me to it in Paris.’
    ‘Anything else?’
    ‘I’d like to have it in a hotel room. With you. Sitting naked on the bed. Now, come and lie close here till I tell you it’s time to move. Think about that hotel room and try to sleep.’
    ‘Mmm. I’m there,’ said Scarlett. ‘The smell of gardenia bath essence floating through the open door …’
    When Scarlett slept, Bond’s eyes scanned the ceiling for any sign of a camera lens. It was dark in the cell, with only a little light filtering through the half-closed grille in the door from the sodium lamp in the corridor outside. Somuch the better, thought Bond. He was satisfied that the girl had understood his instructions and she hadn’t let him down yet.
    When he judged it was about two in the morning, Bond stood up carefully and helped Scarlett to her feet. She massaged his replaced shoulder and kissed the deep cut in his cheek where the glass had gone through to his gum. ‘You’re going to have a good time at the dentist, aren’t you, my love?’
    He grimaced.
    ‘One last thing,’ said Scarlett. ‘Promise me the first thing we do if we make it out alive is get someone here to bring out Poppy.’
    ‘I promise.’ Bond kissed her lightly on the lips, turned to the door and levered his aching body up the rocks till he was wedged above the lintel. ‘Now!’
    Scarlett put her mouth to the grille and let out a long shriek. There was no sound from the other side, though Bond knew that the factory was at work and that there must be guards in the vicinity. Still, no footsteps were better than too many.
    ‘Try again.’
    ‘Ssh. He’s coming.’
    Bond could hear someone approaching. A torch shone through the grille.
    Scarlett opened her grey workshirt to show her breasts. ‘Do you want me?’ she said.
    ‘Where is he?’ said the guard.
    ‘Sleep. He’s hurt. Shoulder.’ Scarlett mimed exhaustion and pointed to a corner beyond the range of the guard’s vision. ‘Come quick,’ she said, tugging at the waistband of her work trousers.
    Still the man hesitated. Scarlett took her breasts in her hands and lifted them into the middle of the torch beam. There was the sound of a key in the lock. The door opened and the guard came in. As he turned to shut the door, Bond fell on to the man’s shoulders, put his hand across his mouth and his other forearm across the windpipe. Scarlett slid the guard’s gun from its holster on his hip. Bond used the carotid takedown he had used on the man at Noshahr, but this time he finished the job.
    When the guard was dead, Bond led Scarlett down the passage from the cell and out into the labyrinth. They ran along the corridor away from Gorner’s office until they came to the open elevator. Bond pointed Scarlett in the direction of the door on the top level, pressed the button and watched her slim figure rise up into the darkness with the dead guard’s gun tucked into the waistband of her trousers.
    He waited till Scarlett, he calculated, was within range of the door, then ran down the corridor to Gorner’s office. He tapped numbers at random into the entry pad, and stood in full view of the security camera. It was only a few seconds before a red bulb began to flash above the door. At once, the corridor was flooded with harsh light and he heard the screech of a siren, then the barking of furious Alsatian dogs and the sound of feet pounding towards him.
    Diversion successful, he thought. Now to survive. He placed his hands high in the air above his head.

16. ‘Shall We Play?’ (II)
    Within a few moments, Bond had six semi-automatic rifles against his head and three Alsatian dogs, barely restrained by their handlers, leaping at his face. He stood completely still with his back to the door of Gorner’s office and his hands above his head, hoping that his calculations had been correct.
    He believed that Gorner’s men were under orders to keep him alive. In the absence of Bond, Gorner could still have a British passport holder at the controls by coercing the pilot of the hijacked VC-10 back into the cockpit. But with his eye always on maximum provocation, Gorner would never use an unknown as the instrument of attack on the Soviet Union if there was a chance of using a known enemy of long standing. The grand symbolic gesture, Bond thought, was a key element of Gorner’s operating method and of the revenge he