Devil May Care

Noshahr.
    Felix climbed shakily to his feet. He put his good arm round Hamid’s shoulder. ‘Thank you, Hamid.’
    ‘ Allahu Akbar. ’
    Felix took a moment to regain his breath. ‘Yes, I think he is. I think you may be right there, Hamid. Now let’s get Mr Alizadeh home.’
    ∗
    Bond calculated that they had been airborne for nearly three hours. He could see in the clear sunlight that they were over the Ural mountains.
    ‘Can I talk to the pilot?’ he said to the guard in the aisle seat. The man shook his head. He probably didn’t speak English, Bond thought.
    ‘Get Massoud,’ he said.
    The man shook his head again.
    ‘I need to know how this plane works,’ said Bond. ‘Get Massoud, will you?’
    The guard made guttural noises to the man in the seat in front of them, and this guard, who wore an American cap of the Chicago Bears, got reluctantly to his feet and went forward. A minute later, he returned – not with Massoud but with Ken Mitchell.
    ‘They want you up front now,’ said Mitchell. ‘Don’t try anything funny.’
    ‘Who’s flying this thing at the moment?’ said Bond.
    ‘It’s on autopilot. You don’t have to do a thing. Not until we get close. Then we have to lose height.’
    ‘Do you know why?’ said Bond.
    ‘No. Funnily enough, when I have a gun at my head I just do what I’m told.’
    ‘I think it’s time you knew,’ said Bond. ‘In the hold of this plane is a large cargo of explosive. We’re going to drop it on Zlatoust-36, Russia’s biggest nuclear stockpile.’
    ‘Dear God.’ Mitchell slumped forward against the seat in front of him.
    ‘Now, Ken,’ said Bond, ‘do you still want me not to try anything funny?’
    The guard next to Bond slapped him in the mouth with the back of his hand. ‘No talk.’
    ‘What going on?’ Massoud came down the aisle from the now empty flight deck.
    He withdrew a Colt .45 from his waistband. Big stopping power, thought Bond, but dangerous at this altitude.
    ‘Get up,’ said Massoud, pointing the gun at Bond’s head.
    ‘I’m not moving,’ said Bond.
    ‘Get up!’ screamed Massoud. He leaned over the guard and grabbed Bond by the throat. Bond could see how this ‘thick-neck’ had controlled the protection and racketeering of a whole bazaar. The guard undid Bond’s seat-belt and Bond kept his hands tight behind his back, holding the recently severed rope in them.
    He allowed Massoud to manhandle him over the guard in the aisle seat, but as his hand trailed over the man’s neck, Bond dropped the cut ropes and sliced down with all his strength into the jugular vein with the shard of glass. Blood spurted on to the seat in front as the man screamed. As he fell forward, Bond grabbed the gun from his holster, and, swivelling powerfully on his heel, smacked the butt of it into Massoud’s face. Massoud fell back across the empty row of seats opposite, momentarily stunned, while Bond threw himself to the floor of the aisle.
    At the same moment there was the magnified explosion of a Soviet pistol going off, and Bond saw the face of the guard in the seat in front of him blown away as the bullet entered his head below the eye socket. The Chicago Bears cap was blown ten rows up the aircraft.
    From the floor, Bond looked back down the aisle. Halfway up the economy section, her feet planted, and a Makarov nine-mm semi-automatic held at the apex of the triangle made by both hands joined, her long dark hair pinned neatlyup beneath the cap, stood a woman in a brand new, pressed uniform of a BOAC hostess.
    The guard from the row behind Bond’s leaned out into the aisle and fired at Scarlett. As he did so, he presented a simple target to Bond, who fired up from the floor with the Luger he had taken from his neighbour. The man’s body fell back across the seats.
    Massoud, meanwhile, had gathered himself and struggled to his feet. Scarlett saw him coming and fired again with her Makarov as Bond threw himself at Massoud’s ankles. Bond was on top of him in the cramped space of the legroom in the row opposite. He got his hands round Massoud’s throat, but found himself thrown back across the gangway as Massoud’s big Colt went off once.
    The bullet went straight through the reinforced Perspex window next to the guard Bond had just shot. The immediate decompression sucked the man’s corpse towards the small jagged hole, where for the time being it made an effective plug.
    There was a shout from Mitchell. ‘Stop shooting! Something’s