Devil May Care

men, a former thick-neck from a Tehran bazaar that I’ve trained up. His name is Massoud. He speaks English – or enough to tell you what to do. The plane has fuel to get to Zlatoust-36, but no more. When you’ve lost height and dropped the bomb, under Massoud’s instruction, you will lose height further and he will leave the plane by parachute. You, Bond, will fly on until there’s no fuel left, and then …’ He spread his arms wide.
    ‘I see.’
    ‘British planes. Very unreliable. And in case you think you can do something heroic when Massoud has left you, there are three armed guards as well. They won’t know about Massoud’s departure. Or the shortage of fuel. They are men who have displeased me. They’re desperate to get back into my good books and think this is their last chance. They imagine Massoud will turn the plane round and fly home. But they have British passports and they’re going down with you. So you can forget about some story-book crash landing on a Russian highway.’
    Gorner looked at his watch. ‘It’s nearly four o’clock. I’mgoing back to bed. Then I shall rise at six and take breakfast. Poached egg, bacon, coffee.’
    ‘I should like black pepper on mine,’ said Bond. ‘Cracked, not ground.’
    ‘Remember the starving Irish,’ said Gorner. ‘A cup of water at eight for you. Sleep well, Bond. Big day tomorrow.’
    The cell door clanged shut. Bond lay down and began to search with his tongue in the sand for the shards of glass.
    At the same moment, Darius Alizadeh was woken by a telephone call in his room at Jalal’s Five Star in Noshahr. He was dreaming of Zohreh in the mixed hammam.
    ‘Hi, Darius. Sorry to wake you. This is Felix Leiter, CIA. Something very big’s going to go off. I need your help.’
    ‘How did you find me?’ said Darius, reluctantly pushing away the image of Zohreh, hot from the steam.
    ‘Relations haven’t completely broken down in the old alliance. I’ve spoken to people in London. To hell with the politicos. This is the real thing.’
    ‘Have you seen J. D. Silver?’ said Darius.
    ‘Carmen? Yup. Saw him in Tehran. Think he’s on his way here.’
    ‘Where are you, Felix?’
    ‘I’m right across the street, Darius.’
    ‘Are you a friend of James Bond?’
    ‘ Santiago! That’s our battle cry. Same as Cortez. James Bond is my blood brother. Shame about his taste in automobiles. Apart from that, he –’
    ‘That’s good enough for me,’ said Darius. ‘Come up to my room. Number two three four.’
    ‘You got it.’
    Leiter replaced the receiver in the waterfront telephonebooth and limped the short distance to Jalal’s. When he got up to room 234, he found Darius Alizadeh already dressed with a tray of coffee and fruit waiting on the table.
    Also in the room was a portly man with a bootbrush moustache. ‘This is Hamid,’ said Darius, as he shook hands with Felix. ‘Driver. Part-time spy. Expert on dead drops and safe-houses.’
    Hamid smiled diffidently.
    ‘Boy, that stuff takes me back,’ said Felix.
    ‘And Hamid knows where the Monster lives.’
    ‘Did Bond trust him?’
    ‘With his life,’ said Darius.
    ‘All right,’ said Leiter, taking the cup of black coffee Darius held out to him. ‘Tell me what you know.’
    When Darius had finished giving him the details he’d received from London of the modified Ekranoplan, Leiter said, ‘Okay, at least we know where she’s starting from. But the rate that baby moves across the water we’re going to have about two hours from Scramble to Bombs Away. After that our planes will be in Soviet airspace. And that’s not a place where a US plane can be for more than five minutes.’
    ‘Where’s your nearest base?’ said Darius.
    ‘Officially, it’s miles away. Timbuctoo for all I know. But unofficially we got planes in Dhahran in Saudi, and something in eastern Turkey. Fighter-bombers. I don’t know for sure. I’m on a need-to-know ticket here, Darius. I just pass on the good news. It’s going to be tight as hell. And that’s just half the problem.’
    ‘What’s the other half?’ said Darius.
    ‘This is what I got. That British airliner went missing a few days ago, it’s due to reappear any day, heading north.’
    ‘Towards the Soviet Union?’
    ‘Yup. We don’t know where, but we’re sure it’s up to no good. We got some intercepts out of Istanbul. Probably been converted to carry bombs of some kind. The Soviet radar’s pretty good and I think we can rely