Edge

Mercedes.
    “It’s the pair of them,” Bond said. “Same plan.”
    “ Da .”
    The Irishman started the engine. The lights flashed on.
    Bond oriented his hand on his Walther, snug in the D. M. Bullard leather pancake holster, and climbed into the backseat of the police car, noticing an empty tin on the floor. One of his comrades had enjoyed a Jelen Pivo, a Deer Beer, while Bond had been conducting surveillance. The insubordination bothered him less than the carelessness. The Irishman might grow suspicious when stopped by a cop with beer on his breath. Another man’s ego and greed can be helpful, Bond believed, but incompetence is simply a useless and inexcusable danger.
    The Serbs got into the front. The engine hummed to life. Bond tapped the earpiece of his SRAC, the short-range agent communication device used for cloaked radio transmissions on tactical operations. “Channel two,” he reminded them.
    “ Da, da .” The older man sounded bored. They both plugged in earpieces.
    And James Bond asked himself yet again: Had he planned this properly? Despite the speed with which the operation had been put together, he’d spent hours formulating the tactics. He believed he’d anticipated every possible variation.
    Except one, it appeared.
    The Irishman did not do what he absolutely had to.
    He didn’t leave.
    The Mercedes turned away from the drive and rolled out of the car park on to the lawn beside the restaurant, on the other side of a tall hedge, unseen by the staff and diners. It was heading for a weed-riddled field to the east.
    The younger agent snapped, “ Govno! What he is doing?” The three men stepped out to get a better view. The older one drew his gun and started after the car.
    Bond waved him to a halt. “No! Wait.”
    “He’s escaping. He knows about us!”
    “No—it’s something else.” The Irishman wasn’t driving as if he were being pursued. He was moving slowly, the Mercedes easing forward, like a boat in a gentle morning swell. Besides, there was no place to escape to . He was hemmed in by cliffs overlooking the Danube, the railway embankment and the forest on the Fruška Gora rise.
    Bond watched as the Mercedes arrived at the rail track, a hundred yards from where they stood. It slowed, made a U-turn and parked, the bonnet facing back toward the restaurant. It was close to a railway work shed and switch rails, where a second track peeled off from the main line. Both men climbed out and the Irishman collected something from the boot.
    Your enemy’s purpose will dictate your response—Bond silently recited another maxim from the lectures at Fort Monckton’s Specialist Training Center in Gosport. You must find the adversary’s intention.
    But what was his purpose?
    Bond pulled out the monocular again, clicked on the night vision and focused. The partner opened a panel mounted on a signal beside the switch rails and began fiddling with the components inside. Bond saw that the second track, leading off to the right, was a rusting, disused spur, ending in a barrier at the top of a hill.
    So it was sabotage. They were going to derail thetrain by shunting it on to the spur. The cars would tumble down the hill into a stream that flowed into the Danube.
    But why?
    Bond turned the monocular toward the diesel engine and the wagons behind it and saw the answer. The first two cars contained only scrap metal but behind them, a canvas-covered flatbed was marked OPASNOST-DANGER! He saw, too, a hazardous-materials diamond, the universal warning sign that told emergency rescuers the risks of a particular shipment. Alarmingly, this diamond had high numbers for all three categories: health, instability and inflammability. The W at the bottom meant that the substance would react dangerously with water. Whatever was being carried in that car was in the deadliest category, short of nuclear materials.
    The train was now three-quarters of a mile away from the switch rails, picking up speed to make the gradient to the bridge.
    Your enemy’s purpose will dictate your response. . . .
    He didn’t know how the sabotage related to Incident 20, if at all, but their immediate goal was clear—as was the response Bond now instinctively formulated. He said to the comrades, “If they try to leave, block them at the drive and take them. No lethal force.”
    He leaped into the driver’s seat of the Jetta. He pointed the car toward the fields where he’d been conducting surveillance and jammed down the