The force of the explosion rocked the ship, the lights flickered and the scanner stopped. Bond clung to his perch by his toe nails and nearly cried out in pain and exasperation. The scanner was four feet from his reach. The weight of the bomb was tearing his injured arm out of its socket. He could not hold it for more than a few seconds. If the latest explosion had affected the power supply they were finished. Come on, damn you! He bit his lip and tasted blood. His fingers slowly started to open. If he dropped the bomb on the quayside and it went off ... the thought gave him the strength to lock his fingers. He could feel the sinews of his arms being systematically torn away from their moorings. And then the lights flickered and the scanner clanked into action. Bond forced his head away from the girder and closed a numb finger and thumb around the fuse. He pressed without feeling anything and aimed the hook at the scanner arm. His first thrust was brushed aside but he launched himself forward and nearly rolled off the girder in a desperate effort to keep up with it. The hook scored the flesh on the back of his hand and then twisted round the scanner arm. The haversack dropped and then hung trembling behind the scanner as it joggled away.
As if hypnotized, Bond watched it narrowing the distance to the steel wall And then the voice of self- preservation shouted in his ear. He thrust himself backwards in a series of untidy leapfrogs and when the scanner seemed to be almost against the louvres, twisted round and threw himself in a despairing leap towards the dock. He missed the quayside by inches and hit the water as a blinding flash and a thunderclap of noise reverberated through the ship. The water closed above his head and when he came up it was to see a thick pall of smoke spilling over the balcony and hear the rattle of small-arms fire.
Willing hands pulled him from the water and he snatched up an automatic and drove his legs towards the starboard staircase. His head rose above the level of the gallery and he saw that the central louvres had been blasted out of true. They looked like blackened, crooked teeth. A giant hole had been torn in the metal screen.
Bond ran through the smoke to find that the battle was over. Those of Stromberg’s men that had not been killed were being herded into a corner and made to he face down with their hands behind their heads. A few technicians still cowered beside their machines. With a certain grim satisfaction, Bond saw that no quarter had been given. Each of the machine-gunners was dead at his post. He was relieved to find Carter striding towards him.
‘Make that a Congressional Medal of Honor.’
Bond tried to smile. ‘Where’s the Captain?’
Carter nodded towards the giant globe, which was still turning on its axis. ‘If he’s not dead, he soon will be.’
Bond found the man lying with the front of his uniform soaked in blood. The colour contrasted with the deathly pallor of his face. He raised his head defiantly. ‘You are too late. Our submarines are already on station. In five minutes they will launch their missiles.’ He shook his head. ‘There is nothing you can do.’
Bond turned away. He was tired almost to death. His wound had re-opened and all he wanted to do was to lie down and be allowed to go to sleep. But that was impossible. He had to think - and he had to think fast. Less than five minutes. What the hell were they going to do? His eyes sped over the banks of equipment trying to find a solution. Then he saw something. It was a chance. A faint chance. But it was all they had.
One of the relay screens on the console showed a set of coordinates. Bond looked from them to the giant globe. Two lights, marked ‘S1’ and ‘S2’, flashed from positions in the Atlantic. Stromberg One and Stromberg Two.
Another explosion thundered through the ship and a slight list to starboard became more pronounced. Black smoke was pouring out of one of the ventilators. Bond could feel the seconds ticking away with every tortured heartbeat. Carter was looking into his face imploringly. ‘James-’
Bond held up his hand and looked at his watch. ‘I know. We have four minutes. Can you work a printout transmission unit?'
‘Sure. Why?’
‘Find one and get ready to transmit. I’ll tell you in a moment.’
Bond’s eyes ranged to the opposite aisle of the console. A body slumped across one of the machines. He pulled it aside and his heart lifted. Through a smear of blood he could make out the faint, flickering digitals of another set of co-ordinates. He checked them off against the globe and they approximated to the indicated position of
‘What on?’
Each other.’ Bond did not pause for a reaction to his words.
I'm going to give you
‘And vice versa.’ Carter’s face lit up. ‘My God I It might just work.’ His fingers poised over the keys and Bond started reeling out the figures. Below him, the message that might save the world began to take shape like a business telex. ‘Captain of Stromberg One. New target co-ordinates. Repeat, new target co-ordinates -*
In less than a minute it was done and Carter started to contact
‘Stromberg One. Message received and understood.’
Carter sighed in relief and snapped his finger. ‘Come on, Stromberg Two, talk to daddy.’
Bond turned to the globe and looked at the throbbing lights indicating New York and Moscow. People waking, people sleeping - perhaps, soon, people dying.
‘James!’
The telex was working again. ‘Stromberg Two. Message received and understood.' It was exactly twelve o’clock.
Bond slumped into a chair and faced the slowly turning globe. Now that the die was cast he felt strangely calm. Whatever more might have been expected of him he had done all that he could. He would have liked a drink. A large dry martini with the thinnest sliver of freshly pared lemon- peel.
‘Look, James!'
Something was happening on the globe. Two dotted lines of lights were rising from the submarine symbols. Bond stiffened. These must be tracing the paths of the missiles. The dotted line from the south Atlantic seemed to be travelling towards New York. The line from the north was rising as if about to veer eastwards. What had happened? Had the captains ignored the change of co-ordinates? Fear drove a wedge into his heart. Then a pattern began to establish itself. The missiles were travelling in an arc. They rose and then began, slowly but remorselessly, to veer towards each other. The traces overlapped and one bisected the other as they started to descend. Bond watched fascinated as the dotted lines drew nearer and nearer to ‘SI’ and ‘S2 Behind, the tanker listed and groaned, playing out a minor drama of its own. It was like watching the fuse burn down to some enormous firework. The globe spun once more and when it came round there were no dotted lines, no symbols.
‘Jesus Christ!' said Carter. ‘I think we’ve done it.’
An explosion punctuated his words and Bond pulled himself to his feet. It wasn’t over yet. ‘Now we save ourselves. What’s the situation on deck?’
‘We can’t get up there.’ Coyle had appeared at their side, his face black with smoke and oil. ‘It’s a sheet of flame from bow to stern. The companionways are buckling with the heat.’ ‘We’ll have to go out the way we came in,’ said Carter. ‘Get everybody aboard the
‘Yes sir! ’ Coyle turned away and started bellowing through a loud-hailer.
Bond looked round for a radio. ‘We must tell the outside world what’s happening. Those two submarines going up is going to put everybody on nuclear alert. God knows how much damage has been caused.’
Carter nodded grimly. ‘Okay, I’ll supervise embarkation. Don’t leave it too late!’ He had to shout the last words as there was a staccato ripple of explosions, and flames belched out of one of the ventilator grills. The paint on the forward bulkhead was blistering. Bond groped his way through the smoke and found a VHF set. It was hot to
