as he would have done under normal circumstances.
Up to Geneva and along the lake front. After that he would change course, cutting straight over Le Richemond Hotel - 'Where the Summit Conference is in progress. You will stay over the hotel for approximately four minutes.' Rahani spoke like an officer used to being obeyed. 'Four minutes at the outside. No more. Nothing will happen.
Nobody will be hurt as long as you do what you're told. After that, you will bring the airship back here and land. You may then leave unharmed.'
'Damned if I will.'
'1 think you will, Nick. Someone else will do it if you don't. This gentleman here, for instance.' He touched Bond's shoulder. 'He's a pilot, without airship experience, but he will do it if we give him enough encouragement. Our encouragement to you is that we kill you straight away, here and now, if you don't agree.'
'He means it, Nick,' Bond interrupted. In a couple of minutes you'll just be a lump of meat. Useless to anyone.
Best do as he says.
The pilot thought for a moment, recognising his inescapable position.
'Okay. Okay, I'll fly the blimp.
'Good, Nick. And thank you, Commander Bond.' Rahani went on in a level voice, 'Now I'll tell you what we have in store for Commander Bond. He is to be your copilot. You will tell him now about the differences between flying an aircraft and handling an airship. We shall give him one round of ammunition for his automatic pistol. One round only. He can wound or kill only one person with that, and there'll be five of us on board; five, not counting Commander Bond and yourself. Bond here will do exactly as I tell him. If you try to be clever, I shall tell him to kill you. If he does not kill you, one of us will do it for him, and force him to take over. If he still resists, then we'll kill him too, and manage the best we can. I understand that this airship is filled with helium and ballasted so that it will stay up, unassisted, for some time, and is difficult to crash. Yes?'
'Guess you're right.'
'Well, Commander Bond will look after you, and we'll all have a pleasant trip. How long will it take?
Half an hour?'
'About that. Maybe three-quarters.
'Commander Bond, talk to your pilot. Learn from him. We have things to get on board the gondola. He gave Bond a hard knock on the shoulder. 'Learn, and do as you are bidden, eh?' Bond lowered his head as he sat down, letting it come near the pilot's, his lips hardly moving. 'I'm working under some duress as well. Just help me. We have to stop them.' Then he said aloud, 'Okay Nick, just tell me about this ship.' The pilot looked up, puzzled for a moment, but Bond nodded encouragement, and he began to talk.
Around them, Rahani's men were carrying equipment out of the office. Among the hardware was one powerful shortwave transmitter and a micro. Bond listened attentively as Nick told him that flying the airship was more or less the same as handling an aircraft.
'Yoke, rudder pedals, same flight instruments, throttles for the two little engines. The only difference is in trimming.' He explained how the two small balloons, fore and aft in the helium-filled envelope, could be inflated with air, or have the air valved off. 'It's more or less the same principle as a balloon, except, with the air-filled ballonets, you don't have to bleed off expensive gas. You just take on or dump air. The ballonets take care of the gas pressure, give you extra lift, or allow you to trim up or down. The only tricky bit is knowing when to dump the pressure as you come in to land, positioning the blimp, so that the ground crew can grab at the guy ropes. You need to bleed it all off at that point, like dumping ballast, so nobody gets lifted off the ground.' It was all technically straightforward, and Nick even made a little drawing to show Bond where the valves lay, above the forward windshield, and how the ballonets were filled with air from scoops below the small engines.
He had hardly finished when Simon came over, glancing at his watch. They looked up, to find the office almost deserted.
'You're both needed at the ship.' He held up one round of 9mm ammunition, and Bond saw that it was one of his original Glaser slugs.
'You get this when we're aboard.' His eyes showed no sympathy. 'Come along, then. We've got to show the flag. One joy ride around the lake.' Over at the airship, Rahani's men had prepared themselves to take up the strain on the forward guy ropes hanging from the great pointed sausage of the airship, which at the moment remained tethered to its mooring mast.
As they reached the ship, they could see the others were already on board the curved gondola, which seemed to hang under the great gleaming envelope.
Nick climbed up first through the large door which took up a third of the gondola's right-hand side. Bond followed, with Simon taking up the rear and pulling the door closed behind him.
Tamil Rahani sat next to Holy at the back of the gondola. In front of them they had arranged the transmitters linked to the computer. The Arab boy sat directly in front of Holy, with General Zwingli across the narrow aisle from him. Bond went forward, taking his place on Nick's right. Simon now hovered between them.
As soon as he was in his seat, Nick became the complete professional, showing Bond the instrumentation, and pointing out the all-important valves for the ballonets.
'Whenever you're ready,' Rahani called out, but Nick did not answer. He was busy with the preflight checks, sliding his window open to shout down to the man in command of the ground crew. 'Okay,' he called. 'Tell your boys to stand by. I'm starting up, and I'll give you a thumbs-up when they have to take strain.' To Bond, he said he would be starting the port engine first, and immediately afterwards the starboard would fire. 'We fill the ballonets straight away, and as they're filling I shall release us from the mooring mast.
The chaps outside, if they've been trained correctly, will take the strain and dump the ballast hanging from the gondola. After that, I trim the ship, lift the nose and,' he turned, grinning, 'we'll see if they have the sense to let go of the guy ropes.
Reaching forward, Nick started both engines, one after the other, very fast, and set the air valves to fill. As Bond watched, Simon leaned forward, felt inside his jacket and removed the ASP. There was a double click as one round went into the breech, then the weapon was handed back. 'You kill him, if the Colonel gives the order. If you try anything clever, I'll shoot you.' Bond did not even acknowledge him. By now he was following everything that Nick was doing, opening the throttles, pulling the lever that moored them to the mast, monitoring the pressure.
The airship's nose tilted upwards, and Nick waved to the ground crew as he gave the engines full throttle. The nose slid higher and there was a tiny sensation of buoyancy, then, very slowly they moved forwards and upwards - rock-steady, no tremor or vibration as they climbed away from the field. It was like riding on a magic carpet.
PLOUGHSHARE IN HIS TIME
James Bond had either flown, or flown in, most types of aircraft, from the old Tiger Moth biplane to Phantom jets. Yet never had he experienced anything like the Europa.
The morning was clear and sunny. With its two little engines humming like a swarm of hornets, its single blade wooden airscrews blurring into twin discs, the fat silver ship glided out from the wide cleft in the mountains, over the road and railway lines, and climbed above the lake. It would have been an enchanted moment for anyone, like Bond, who loved machines. At a thousand feet, gazing out at the spectacular view of lake and mountains he even forgot for a few seconds the horrifying and dangerous mission they were embarked upon.
It was the stability of the ship that amazed him most.
There was a complete lack of any buffeting experienced at that height and over that type of terrain in a conventional aircraft. No wonder those who travelled on the great airships of the 1920s and 1930s fell in love with them.
The Europa dipped its nose, almost stood on it, turning a full circle. At fifteen hundred feet they had a panoramic view of the lake: the mountain peaks touched with snow against the light blue sky, Montreux in the distance, the French side of the lake with the town of Thonon looking peaceful and inviting.
Then Nick eased the ship around so that they could see Geneva as they approached at a stately fifty miles per hour.
Bond turned his head to look at the rear of the gondola. Rahani and Jay Autem Holy ignored the view, hunched over the transmitter.
