sea twinkling far below.
‘He’s dropping back - James.’
Bond’s eyes shot to the mirror. At first glance it seemed as if Anya was right. Bond suppressed a smile. Serve the fellow right. It was an impertinence to try and keep up with the Lotus in that thing. Then Bond looked again. The combination was actually breaking up! There was a ferocious wobble and the motorcycle veered off to the left. Bond watched in amazement. The sidecar was still coming on!
‘James! It’s coming for us!’
Anya was right. Like a land torpedo, the sidecar was gaining on them fast. Bond drove the accelerator pedal down until his foot was flattening the carpet pile. The engine roared enthusiastically and the rev counter climbed towards the six thousand mark. A hundred and twenty, a hundred and twenty- five - racing change into fifth - a hundred and thirty, a hundred and thirty-five. The needle was still climbing, but -
‘It’s gaining on us!'
What the devil was it? Some kind of guided missile programmed to destroy them? Was there no way of shaking it off? Bond searched the road ahead. They were coming up fast behind a furniture van. Bond read the Italian on the back: The Mandami Mattress Company. Well, it was soon going to be sweet dreams, unless ... Bond shot towards the van as if intent on ramming it and felt Anya tensing beside him. The wedge nose of the Esprit trembled under the tail board and he glanced at the mirror. Death dressed in yellow and orange was streaking towards them. Bond threw the wheel over and heard Anya scream. An articulated lorry filled the road. Its headlights swore but Bond's pressure on the accelerator pedal did not slacken. As the wall of metal bore down on them the Lotus rippled and then hurled itself forward. There was an eldritch wail like an express train passing in the night and the world disintegrated into a kaleidoscope of smeared vision and ruptured sound.
Bond jerked the wheel to the right and the car skipped into line behind him. Suddenly, the road in front was empty. Thank God! The tension released itself as if through an opened valve. He glanced at the mirror. Behind, it was snowing. The road was obscured by a blizzard of white flakes. Not snowflakes, feathers! The side-car had detonated on impact with the van and blown God knows how many feather mattresses to kingdom come. In hot pursuit, the motorcyclist, half blinded by feathers, lost control of his machine. The bike twisted like a rubber band and went through the low wall as if it was pie crust. For an instant it seemed to hang in space, and then traced a graceful parabola to the ocean. Driver and machine were not separated when they hit the water. Bond’s cruel face looked down at the widening, froth-flecked ripples without expression. He shook his head.
‘All those feathers and be still couldn't fly.'
The cloud of feathers began to disperse and drift towards the sea, revealing the charred superstructure of the van. Flames licked through the roof and the driver stood beside the still- intact cab of his blazing vehicle and semaphored his feelings to heaven.
Bond watched as a battered Fiat saloon picked its way through the wreckage and waited for the occupants to come stumbling out and join the van driver in a pantomime of Latin gesticulation. But the Fiat did not stop. Clear of the obstruction, it picked up speed and came towards them. Fast. Bond jerked his head round and the 14-inch 7Js blitzed gravel against the perimeter wall. In five seconds the needle had passed fifty and the Lotus was filling its lungs with power. The Fiat hurtled after them and the chase was on. Bond glanced in the mirror and his jaw tightened. The Fiat was holding on well. Something must have been souped up under that rusty bonnet. As he looked, a figure leaned out of one of the windows and something glinted. Crack! Crack! Two single shots and then a burst of automatic fire. Bond sawed at the wheel and swung the Lotus from side to side as a bend loomed up. For a fraction of a second, an oncoming car hung before them and Bond saw a close-up of the driver’s terrified face. Then they were in a tunnel. So fast that Bond had no time to flick up the headlights. A semi-circle of light became huge before them and bullets hurled chunks of rock against the side of the car. Out of the corner of his eye, Bond could see that Anya had her Beretta in her hand. She turned towards the window.
‘Don’t bother.’
‘But-’
‘I know you’re a crack shot.’ Bond smiled grimly and drifted into a bend. The tail of the Lotus swung out and then snapped back with a seductive wriggle. ‘I’ve done some research as well.’ He glanced at the dashboard. ‘How far behind are they?5
‘Thirty metres.’
‘It’s what my old Scottish nanny used to call “byebyes time”.’ He pressed a switch. Nothing happened. Cursing, he pressed it again.
Anya said nothing. She merely leaned out of her window and squeezed off two shots. The cracks were barely audible over the roar of the wind and the engine. The Fiat held its course for a few moments and then slewed violently across the road. Its wheels seemed to fold under it and it snapped off a hollow bollard like a rotten tooth and plunged down a steep incline. The petrol tank exploded on the first bounce and like a fireball aimed at hell the Fiat plummeted on to the rocks three hundred feet below. There was a second, more violent explosion and a column of black smoke to mark the spot for the fast disappearing Lotus.
Bond avoided Anya’s eyes. ‘Back to the drawing-board,’ he said ruefully. He eased his foot off the accelerator as the road began to snake down towards the sea. He looked down towards the welcoming blue ocean and thought of the human mincemeat frying as its edge. How much luck did he have left?
‘Somebody must have called the Polizia.' Anya was looking along the coast to where a helicopter was approaching at speed. Bond frowned. It was too early to be certain but it looked like a Bell YUH-IB. The model under the glass dome at Stromberg’s laboratory. He began to gun the motor.
‘It is coming so fast!’
Bond's eyes were worried slits. ‘It’s probably been fitted with auxiliary turbojets. Should be capable of over three hundred miles an hour.’ Twice as fast as the Lotus. And it was following the line of the road. The next seconds were crucial If it was the police it would stop at the burnt-out van. Bond swung into a hairpin and the helicopter was blotted from view. Right hand, left hand, foot down. He looked back. Nothing. A feeling of relief swept over him. He must guard against getting jumpy.
Then it was on them, like an angry dragonfly swooping over die lee of the hill. The sudden roar of the props made his nerves scream and there was the deadly hammer of cannon fire. A swathe of shells blasted the road in front of him and stitched a seam of dust explosions up the banking. Bond started to drive like a madman. He had to get down to sea level! Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! The chopper was coming in again. Opening up at the road behind them and letting its superior speed do the rest. Anya could see the line of shells racing towards them like a shark’s fin towards its victim. Then suddenly there was darkness and a receding circle of light. They were in another tunnel. She turned to Bond. ‘Why don’t we stay here?’
The callous eyes stared unflinchingly ahead. ‘Because we'd be trapped. They'd drop somebody at either end and shoot us to pieces.’
Now they were out of the tunnel and sweeping down towards the sea, protected by high banking. Anya could see the water twinkling twenty feet below her. The sky above was empty. Had the helicopter called off the chase? It was probably still climbing over the rock they had just sped through.
Then it was on them again like an avenging blade. The manoeuvrability of the Bell was extraordinary. It might have been pinned to their tail. The road opened up and Anya's heart fell. It ran beside the sea, straight and level as a landing strip. There was no escape route. They would have to stop and fight at any cover that presented itself. But Bond did not stop.
His foot pressed down and his ruthless jaw set firmer. What was he trying to do? He could not outspeed the helicopter. The road stretched straight as far as the eye could see. Anya looked back. The helicopter was five feet above the ground and coming up on them as if intending to land on the roof of the car. She could see the pilot and the huge bulk of the man beside him.
Stromberg’s killer. His mouth was split into a smile of triumph and his hands were wrapped exultantly about the cannon as if it was a toy that had at last come into its own. He was going to open up at them from point-blank range; the heavy shells would tear the GFRP bodywork to reinforced plastic shreds and spew their guts over three hundred metres of tarmac.
‘Stop!’
Bond stamped the brake-pedal through the floor and left two ribbons of burning rubber spilling out like insulating tape. The Lotus began to spin and the chopper overshot the car and soared like a swingboat in its upwards arc. As it banked steeply and returned, Bond conquered the spin and flung the wheel towards the sea. The
