mirror told him the plough behind was doing the same thing. In that instant, Bond felt the hair on the nape of his neck prickle with the sensed danger. He passed a crossroads and one glance to the right told him the road was relatively clear. These ploughs, therefore, were not out on their normal job: their purpose was more sinister.
Bond was only three seconds past the crossroads when he acted, wrenching the wheel to the right, slamming his left foot hard on to the brake, feeling the back begin to swing into the inevitable skid, then gunning the accelerator and spinning the Saab in a controlled turn. In that instant, Bond had changed direction. Gently he increased the revs, correcting the back swing which would send him into a second spin across the coating of ice below him.
The plough which had been behind was considerably closer than he had judged, and, as he increased his own speed, concentrating on the feel of the car, ready to correct at the first hint of a developing swing, the solid metal hulk grew larger, bearing down on him as they closed.
He would be lucky to make the crossroads before the plough, and, though there was no time to look, Bond knew the other snow plough had also increased speed. If he did not reach the crossroads in time, either he would hit the snowbank at the side of the road – burying the Saab’s nose deep so that the car would be at anyone’s mercy – or the two ploughs would catch him, front and rear, crushing the car between their knife-like curved blades.
One hand left the wheel for a second, to punch at two of the buttons on the dashboard. There was a quiet hiss as the hydraulic system opened two of the hidden compartments. Now the grenades and his Ruger Super Redhawk were within reach. So were the crossroads. Straight ahead.
The snow plough in front of him, burning yellow and steel in Bond’s headlights, was about twelve metres from the intersection. Feinting like a boxer, Bond started to turn right. He saw the plough grind to its left, pounding out speed in an attempt to cut into the Saab as it took the right-angled turn.
Then, at almost the last moment, when he had all but committed himself to the turn, Bond swung the wheel even harder right, left-footed on to the brake again, and once more increased the revs, tramping down on the accelerator.
The car spun like an aircraft, Bond’s feet coming off both brake and accelerator at the same moment, just as the vehicle was half-way through the spin and starting to move, broadside on, lining up with the road opposite – the road that would have been his left turn.
Correcting the steering, and slowly increasing the revs, Bond felt the car react, like a perfectly controlled animal, the rear sliding slightly. Correct. Slide. Correct. Accelerator. Then he was on line, moving comfortably forward with the huge bulk of the two snow ploughs rising to his right and left.
As he cleared the blade of the more dangerous plough – now on his right – Bond snatched at the grenades, doing the unforgivable and ripping the pin from an L2A2 with his teeth as he part-opened the driving door to drop it clear, and in his wake. The bitter air blasted into the car as Bond struggled to slam the door shut. Then he felt the shudder as the Saab’s rear grazed the steel blade of the plough to his right.
For a second, he thought the touch would throw him right off track and into the heavily piled snow on either side of the secondary road into which he was heading. But the car steadied and he regained control, hearing the snow piled at the side of the road spume upwards as his mudguards hit it. There was just enough room to take the car up the smaller road between the high white mounds. Then, from behind, came the crump of the grenade. A quick glance into the mirror – for he hardly dared take his eyes from the road and the head-up display – showed a dark red flower of flame coming from directly beneath one of the high yellow ploughs. With luck, the grenade would be enough to bog down that plough for ten minutes or so, while the other pushed it, incapacitated, out of the way.
In any case, Bond figured, even along this narrow, dangerous, snow-flanked gulley of a road, he could outrun any snow plough. That was, any snow plough behind him. He had not counted for yet another – dead ahead, spotlights splitting the darkness, dazzling him as it came, seemingly from nowhere. This time there was no place to hide.
Behind, with good fortune, one plough would be out of action and another ready to follow up as soon as the way was clear. Ahead, yet a third yellow monster came on, snow pluming from its bows. Presumably, Bond thought, there would be a fourth lying silent, with lights dowsed, along the other road of the cross.
Like some classic military armoured operation, someone had laid an ambush, strictly for Bond. Just at the right place, and the right time.
But he did not stop to work out the logic, or the intelligence, which might have led someone to set the trap. The yellow plough had locked lights with the Saab, but even through the dazzle, Bond could see the curved blade move downwards until it was just clipping the ice at the centre of the road, its bows still distributing the gathered snowdrifts away and behind it with the ease of a motorboat throwing off water at speed.
Mind racing, Bond pulled over as far as he dared and stopped the car. Staying inside now would be lunacy. Think of it as a military assault. He was cornered, and there was only one thing to be done – stop the snow plough bearing down on him.
The Redhawk, with its .44 Magnum punch – and fast double action – was the handgun needed now. Bond grabbed it, stuffed two L2A2s into his jacket pockets, opened the door gently and just before rolling low out of the car, grabbed at one of the stun grenades – ‘flash-bangs’ as the Special Air Service dubbed them.
The ground was hard, and the biting cold hit Bond like iced water as he rolled to the rear of the car and launched himself into the high snowdrift to the left. The snow was powdery and soft. In a second he was waist- deep and sinking. Bond kicked backwards, getting his legs into a kneeling position, still sinking until he was buried almost to the shoulders.
But this was a new and very different vantage point from which to fight. The dazzle of the snow plough’s lights and the big spot above the cab was gone. Through his goggles, Bond could see two men at the controls, and the cumbersome vehicle shifting, aiming itself towards him. There was no doubt. They were going in for the kill prepared to slice the Silver Beast in half. Silver versus yellow, thought Bond, and raised his right arm, the left hand still clutching the stun grenade, wrist under right wrist to steady his aim.
His first shot took out the spotlight; the second shattered the glass screen of the plough’s cabin. Bond had aimed high. He wanted no killing if it could be avoided.
One of the doors opened and a figure began to climb out. At that moment Bond lowered the Redhawk, switched it to his left hand in exchange for the stun grenade, pulled the pin and lobbed the hard green egg with all the force he could muster towards the shattered screen of the cab.
The grenade must have gone off right inside the cab. Bond heard the thunderclap, but averted his eyes. The flash would certainly cause temporary blindness, and the explosion might rupture the occupants’ eardrums.
Holding the revolver high, Bond rolled himself out of the snowdrift, almost swimming his way out through the thick, heavy powder, until he could stand and move – with some caution – towards the plough.
One of the crew was lying unconscious beside the big machine: the man who had tried to jump clear, Bond reckoned. The other, in the driver’s seat, had both arms over his face and rocked to and fro, moaning in harmony with the wind which screamed down the funnel of the road.
Bond found a grip, pulled himself up on to the driver’s side, and tugged the cab door open. Some instinct must have told the driver of danger near by, for he cringed away. Bond clipped the man sharply on the back of the neck with the Ruger’s barrel, and he went to sleep with no further argument.
Oblivious to the cold, Bond hauled the man down, dragging him around the front of the plough and dumping him next to his partner before returning to the cab. The snow plough’s engine was running, and Bond felt as though he was sitting a mile above the wicked hydraulics and the great blade. The array of levers was daunting, but the engine still chugged away. All that concerned Bond was getting the brute off the road, or at least past the Saab and into a position in which it would block the remaining plough at the crossroads.
In the end it was simple. The normal mechanism worked with a wheel, clutch and throttle. It took Bond about three minutes to edge the giant down, past the Saab, and then across the road. He turned off the engine, removed the key and threw it out over the smooth snow dunes. The crew were both still unconscious, and would probably suffer from frostbite as well as the damage to their ears. That was little enough to pay, Bond thought, for having tried to carve him into a series of frozen joints.
Back in the car, he turned the heating full up to dry out, returned the Redhawk – after reloading – and the grenades to their respective hiding places, reset the buttons and consulted the map.
If the snow plough had come down the entire track, it should be clear right up to the main Salla road. Two hours’ more driving and he would make it. In the end, it took almost three full hours, for the track twisted and
