Jay Autem Holy, and it did not take long for Bond to glean that Holy used his own hybrid program language, which Percy referred to as Holy Code.
'It's one of Jay Autem's main strengths as far as protecting his programs is concerned,' Percy told him over dinner. 'He's still using the same system, and the games being produced by Gunfire Simulations are quite inaccessible to other programmers. He always said that if security were necessary - and by God he believed in it the simplest protection is the best. He has an almost perfect little routine at the start of all his games programs that's quite unreadable by anyone who wants to copy or get into the disk. It's exactly the same code he used to put on to his Pentagon work. Anyone trying to copy or list turns the disk into rubbish.' Bond insisted on talking about Dr Holy whenever he was given the opportunity, to seek out as much as he could about the man's strengths and weaknesses before meeting him. There could certainly be no better instructor than Percy in this area.
'He looks like a great angry hawk. Well, you've seen the photographs.' They were dining in the hotel. 'Outward appearances are not to be trusted, though. If I hadn't been on a specific job, I could so easily have fallen for him. In fact, in some ways I did. There were often times when I hoped he'd prove to be straight.' She looked pensive, and for a moment it was as though she did not see Bond, or the magnificent dining hall dating back to the Third Empire and undoubtedly the best restaurant in the principality.
'He has amazing powers of concentration. That knack of being able to close off the rest of the world and allow his own work to become the only reality. You know how dangerous that can be.' Bond reflected on his own past encounters with the kind of madness that turned men into devils.
It was after this particular dinner, towards the end of the second week, that something happened to change the even tenor of Bond's emotions for some time to come.
'So, are we playing the Salles Privees tonight, or shall we jaunt?' Percy asked.
Bond decided on a trip along the coast to the small casino in Menton, and they left soon afterwards.
The gaming itself did not make it a night to remember, though Bond left with a few thousand francs bulging in his wallet. As they pulled away from the casino to take the road through Roquebrune-CapMartin and so back to Monaco, he caught the lights of a car drawing away directly behind him. He knew there had been a car there, but he had seen nobody getting into it. Immediately he told Percy to tighten her seatbelt.
'Trouble?' she asked, but betrayed no sign of nervousness.
'I'm going to find out, he said as he accelerated, letting the big car glide steadily into the nineties, holding well into the side of the narrow road, praying the police were not around, then thinking perhaps it would be better if they were.
The lights of the car behind remained visible in the driving mirror. When Bond was forced to slow - for that road twists and turns before reaching the long stretch of two-lane highway - it came even closer. It was hard to tell if anything was wrong. Plenty of traffic used this route, though it was late and the season had yet to get under way.
The car tailing them was a white Citron, its distinctive rounded bonnet clearly visible behind the lowered headlights. It stuck like a limpet, a discreet distance behind. Bond wondered whether it was just some young Frenchman or Italian wanting to race or show off to a girlfriend. Yet the prickling sensation around the back of his neck told him this was a more sinister challenge.
They came off the two-lane stretch like a rocket, with Bond stabbing at the big footbrake in order to drop speed quickly. From there the road into Monaco was not only narrow but closed in on both sides by rockface or houses leaving little room for manoeuvre. He took the next bend at about sixty miles per hour. Percy made a little audible intake of breath. As he heard her, Bond saw the obstruction.
Another car pulled over to the right, but was still in the Bentley's road space, its hazard lights winking like a dragon's eyes.
To the left and hardly moving, blocking most of the remaining space, was an old and decrepit lorry, wheezing as though about to suffer a complete collapse. Bond yelled for Percy to hang on, jabbed hard at the brake, and slewed the Bentley first left, then right, in an attempt to slalom his way between the vehicles.
Halfway through the right-hand skid, it was plain they would not make it. The Bentley's engine howled as he pushed the lever from automatic drive to low-range, taking the engine down to first.
They were both pressed hard against the restraining straps of their seatbelts as the heavy car came to a halt, the speed dropping from fifty-five almost to zero in the blink of an eye. They were angled across the road, with the oncoming car jamming their right side and the elderly lorry backing slightly on the left. Two men jumped down from the lorry, and another pair materialised from the shadows surrounding the parked car as the white Citron boxed them in neatly from behind.
'Doors!' Bond shouted, slamming his hand against his door lock control, knowing his warning was more of a precaution than anything else, for the central locking system should be in operation. At least three of the men now approaching the Bentley appeared to be armed with axes.
Bond realised as he reached for the hidden pistol compartment catch that his action was only a reflex. If he operated the electric window to use the weapon, they would have a route in. In fact, they could get in anyway, for even a car built like his would eventually collapse under efficiently wielded axes.
The Bentley Mulsanne Turbo is a little over six and a half feet wide. Bond's was not quite at right angles across the road. The Citroen behind, he judged, was within a foot of his rear bumper, but the Bentley's weight would compensate for that. Ahead, the car with its hazard lights blinking was a couple of inches from his door, the lorry some three inches from the bonnet. Directly in front, eight feet or so away, the roadside reached up a sloping rock face. The Bentley's engine had not stalled and still gave out its low grumble.
Holding his foot hard on the brake pedal, Bond adjusted the wheel and, as one of the assailants came abreast of his window, placing himself between the Mulsanne and the parked car, raising both hands to bring down the axe, Bond slid the gear lever into reverse, and lifted his foot smartly off the brake.
The Bentley slid backwards, fast. There was a judder as they hit the Citroen, and a yelp of pain from the man about to try and force entry with his axe. Thrown to one side, he had been crushed between the Bentley and the parked car.
With a quick movement of his right hand, Bond now slid the automatic gear into drive. He had, maybe, an extra six inches to play with. His foot bore gently down on the accelerator. The car eased forward. The screaming attacker on their right was once again crushed as the Bentley straightened up, then gathered speed and headed for the small gap.
The steering on the Mulsanne Turbo is so light and accurate that Bond did not have to wrench at the wheel.
Using a very light touch of his fingers, he eased the Bentley into the narrow gap between lorry and car. More control to the left.
Straight. Hard left. A fraction to the right. Then his foot went down, and they were hurtling forward, passing the front of the car, but with less than an inch to spare between the lorry on the left and the rock face to the right.
Quite suddenly, they were through, back on the empty road downhill into Monaco.
'Hoods?' He could feel Percy quivering beside him though her voice betrayed no sign of fear.
'You mean our kind?' She nodded, her mouth forming a small 'Yes.'
'Don't think so. Looked like a team out to take our money, and anything else they could grab. There's always been plenty of that along this coast. In the north of England they have a saying: where there's muck there's brass. You can change that to where there's money there's lice.
Bond knew he was lying. It was just possible that the axe men were a group of gangsters. But the set-up had been deadly in its professionalism and sophistication. He would report it as soon as he could get a safe line to London. He told Percy that he would do just that.
'So shall I.' They said nothing more until they got to her room.
After that, neither of them would ever be able to say what started it.
'The'y were pros,' she said.
'Yes.
'I don't like it, James. I'm pretty experienced, but I can still get frightened.' She moved closer to him, and in a second his arms were around her. Their lips met as though each was trying to breathe fresh energy into the other. Her mouth slid away from him and her cheek lay alongside his neck as she clung on, whispering his name.
So they became lovers, their needs and feelings erupting, adding urgency to every moment of the day and
