Bond awoke reluctantly. The flight from Europe, the events of the day before and the long night that had followed, all pressed down on him, forcing him to fight his way through the tunnel back to consciousness. He was in a room that was perfectly square and perfectly uninteresting and, a depressing thought to start a new day, he was in it alone. He threw back the covers and got out of bed. The curtains were drawn but the sunlight was blasting its way in at the sides. He opened them and looked out onto a patio, a swimming pool, a figure knifing through the water, reaching the end, then turning and beginning another length.
He knew at once that it was Jeopardy. Her shoulders were bare, her arms well-developed, powering her forward in a slow, steady rhythm. The strands of fair hair, darkened by the water, kissed her neck. She was wearing a flesh-coloured costume that, for a moment, gave the illusion of complete nudity. Bond looked at the water separating on either side of her behind, which was small and round, like a child’s. She reached the end of the pool and, without stopping for a breath, corkscrewed back, her whole body contorting. Bond had seen enough. He went and had a shower, then made phone calls to London and New York.
Later, at breakfast, her hair still damp, Jeopardy came over and joined him.
‘Jason Sin is back in America,’ Bond told her. ‘I’ve spoken to the CIA. He landed at Idlewild two nights ago and disappeared from sight, but yesterday he was seen being driven into a compound just outside Paterson, New Jersey.’
‘Blue Diamond?’
‘Yes. Some sort of depot.’
Jeopardy nodded. ‘I’ve seen pictures. He does a lot of work in construction and he has his own heavy plant: excavators, dump trucks, lowboys . . . that sort of stuff. It’s quite a place. Totally fenced in. There are security guards, the whole works.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But why? What do you think he’s doing there? What’s he hiding?’
‘Whatever he’s doing, I think we should go there.’ Bond had instantly made up his mind. There was nothing to be gained by hanging around in Maryland. Both the British and the US Secret Service had given the Naval Research Laboratory every warning they could possibly need but they were determined to press ahead. Which left the two of them with no choice but to take the fight to the enemy. ‘If Sin is there the day before the launch, there must be a reason. If I can find a way in, at the very least I can take a look around.’
‘I’m coming with you,’ Jeopardy said.
Bond smiled. ‘I wouldn’t dream of doing this alone. Seriously, Jeopardy, what you did last night was amazing. I think the American Secret Service are very lucky to have you.’
‘Forget it. I’ve settled the tab. Let’s get the hell out of here.’
There was a seven-hour drive between them and New Jersey. Jeopardy drove a two-door Chevrolet Bel Air and they left together, stopping after half an hour at a low wooden cabin that advertised itself as Harry’s Gun Shop (Everything for the Outdoorsman). Bond had left his ammunition back at the motel but he had his gun and his wallet which, he decided, was all you really needed to get by in America. He bought what he needed from an old, gap-toothed sales manager who handed the goods across as if they were loose change and they set off again. For a while they drove in silence. Bond lit a cigarette and offered one to Jeopardy but she shook her head. ‘Not while I’m driving.’
‘So are you going to tell me about yourself?’ he asked. ‘How did you get to be a spy?’
‘I’m not a spy,’ she replied. ‘I told you. I’m a field agent. I don’t have a gun and I don’t creep around sending people messages in code or things like that. I’m not like you.’
‘Then how did you get to be a field agent with the American Secret Service?’
‘Why are you asking?’ She was suddenly defensive.
‘Because I’m interested.’ Bond rolled down the window, releasing the smoke. ‘You don’t have to worry, Jeopardy. This is just between the two of us and if we’re going to get into trouble together, it would be nice to know who I’m with.’
She softened. Not taking her eyes off the road, she answered him. ‘There’s not much to tell. I was brought up in a pretty rough neighbourhood, if you want the truth. You could say I was born on the wrong side of the tracks – and I mean that literally. Our house backed onto a big railway depot at Coney Island. There was a fence at the end and all the kids used to break in to play on the tracks and sneak around the workshops. Of course it was dangerous – and the transit people put up a big sign on a chain. It had a single word on it, written in red ink. JEOPARDY. That was how I got my name. My mom looked out and saw it the day she was having me and somehow she just thought it was right.’
She slipped the car into a higher gear, using the three-speed Synchro-Mesh transmission, and pulled out, overtaking a Pontiac in front of her. Bond liked women who drove confidently. He wasn’t surprised that Jeopardy was in total command of the road.
‘My dad drank himself to death when I was six years old,’ she went on. She said it in such a matter-of-fact way that she could have been discussing the weather. ‘My mom tried to look after me but she couldn’t even look after herself. I spent my childhood out on the streets, playing Stoopball with the other kids, hanging out at Nathan’s hot-dog stand. That sort of stuff. When I was about thirteen, I got sucked into the carnie. A lot of kids did. It was easy money and nobody asked any questions. I spent three months working in a sideshow. I was “Olga the headless girl”. Did you ever see it? I had to sit there with my head hidden behind mirrors and with all these tubes running out of my neck and the showman would step out: “You’ve all heard of artificial hearts and artificial lungs. Now here’s the girl with the artificial head.” I used to quite enjoy it, sitting there, taking off my gloves and crossing and uncrossing my legs. I could hear all the people gasping in horror. And they paid me ten cents an hour.
‘After that, I did a stint on the Wall of Death, tearing around this giant barrel on an old Indian Scout Motorbike. You had to go about forty miles an hour to stay on and they made a big deal because I was a girl. “Little Miss Daredevil” they called me, but I don’t think anyone was very impressed because I looked like a boy and a pretty mean one at that.
‘Maybe I’d still be there now, although even then the whole place – the boardwalk, the amusement park – was beginning to shut down. But then my mom died – it was liver cancer – and an uncle I’d never heard of turned up, took one look at me, and dragged me off to Washington, DC. That was when my whole life changed. Actually, it was more than that. It was like it had never happened. Ralph and Gracie were good people. They had no kids of their own and they were horrified by what they saw. They were determined to turn me round. They put me into school and then college and forced me to catch up on six years’ lost education. They changed the way I looked. They changed everything about me. It was church every Sunday, meals round the table, no drink – and definitely no swearing. Ralph worked at the Treasury Department and he got me a job as a secretary in research. Now I’m an investigator. I still live in DC. I have a nice apartment. I live on my own. That’s how I like it.’ She changed gear and pulled into the outside lane. ‘And now let’s talk about something else. Or you can turn on the radio. We’ve still got another three hours to go.’
The sun had begun its downward curve but the afternoon heat was still close and intense when they arrived at the construction depot that belonged to Blue Diamond and where Jason Sin was now based.
It was five o’clock – exactly thirty hours until the Vanguard launch. But what possible link could there be between this place and an event happening more than four hundred and fifty miles away? What interest could SMERSH, with all its power and ambition, have in a grimy industrial wasteland where industrial diggers sat next to beaten-up forklifts and garbage trucks with spools of wire, cement blocks and all the other detritus of the construction industry? Even as Bond watched, crouching beside the car on the edge of a slight hill, a low-loader – Jeopardy had called it a lowboy – arrived at the main gate and began the painful manoeuvre that would allow it to enter. There was certainly plenty of security. A single-storey office, brick with a large observation window, guarded the entrance and there were at least half a dozen men in attendance, some of them Korean, checking the driver’s papers, the vehicle, the driver himself. The compound, shaped like a rectangle and at least two hundred yards in length, was dotted with metal poles supporting night vision cameras and arc lights, the whole thing surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with rolled barbed wire. CAUTION – HEAVY PLANT ENTERING. NO TRESPASSING read the sign in large letters that meant it. There had to be something here that was worth protecting but, crouching on the outside, Bond couldn’t imagine what it might be.
The left-hand side of the compound was dominated by a huge warehouse, corrugated iron with a soaring zinc chimney that reminded Bond of Enterprises Auric in Switzerland. It was triple-height, with massive sliding doors that were already opening to let in the lowboy. Inside, Bond heard machinery – hammering, and the scream of an electric saw – and got a glimpse of gantries and a dull yellow light, but he could see nothing more. Opposite, there were temporary offices and living quarters built like Nissen huts, a car park with around a hundred cars, and some sort of administration block. And Sin himself? He had to live in the house that overlooked the central courtyard, a building that seemed strangely familiar to Bond. It was white, elegant, two-storeys high, built some time in the nineteenth century and definitely not American. Of course! It was crazy, but he knew exactly what he was looking at. Like many schoolboys before him, Bond had been dragged round the house where the poet John Keats had lived in Hampstead, north London. This building was an exact copy.
How were they going to get in? Bond was aware of the ticking clock. At Wallops Island, final checks – ensuring that all vehicle systems were in order – would be well under way. They couldn’t cut through the wire. Even assuming they could purchase the necessary equipment, Bond was certain that there would be some sort of alarm device built in. Making any sort of move in full daylight was out of the question. There were people everywhere, men and women criss-crossing each other’s paths, taking no notice of each other, some in hard hats, some carrying pieces of equipment. Like it or not, they would have to wait for darkness. And then? The main gate was the only way.
They had a meal together and Bond outlined his plan. At first, Jeopardy was reluctant. If he was going in, she wanted to be with him, but he managed to persuade her to see things his way.
‘I can’t do this without you, Jeopardy, and whatever I find, you’ll be the first to know.’
The sun had set by the time they returned and the long shadows colluded in their approach. The evening had a close, clammy feel, indigo clouds passing sluggishly overhead. The compound was quieter now, at least on the outside. Bond could hear the work continuing inside the warehouse, the grinding of machinery, the sound of a man shouting. The smell of dust and machine oil lingered in the air. Jeopardy was beside him. The two of them had a good view of the main gate and they could see that there were still many vehicles coming in and out. That was good. That was what they needed.
A truck was approaching. Bond could tell it was going to turn into the compound; it was already slowing down. He nudged Jeopardy and together they scrambled down the side of the hill until they reached the fence, then followed it along to the main gate. They were both wearing dark clothes. Provided they kept away from the side of the road, it was unlikely they would be seen. They stopped about ten yards from the security office. The truck turned and its headlights swept briefly across them.
‘Now,’ Bond said.
Jeopardy left him, straightening up and walking towards the entrance as if she had every right to be there. Four men had come out, once again checking the driver and the inside of the front cabin, but suddenly they had something else to contend with, a young woman who had appeared from nowhere.
‘Can you help me?’ Bond heard her say. ‘My car broke down. It’s just up the road.’
‘I’m sorry, lady. You can’t come in here.’
But she was already inside the complex. She had walked in front of the truck, through the open gate. She was moving forward, making for the door of the office.
‘Lady! Do you mind?’
‘I just need to make a call.’
Three of the men were closing on her. The fourth had stayed with the driver. Nobody noticed Bond on the other side of the truck as he slipped through the open gate then followed the fence as it stretched into the darkness. He had done it! The warehouse was in front of him. He had already decided that it was there that he would begin. Sin might be inside the white house. There might be files and photographs inside the administration block. But it was whatever work had to continue beyond nine o’clock at night that interested him. Jeopardy would make a nuisance of herself for the next ten minutes, refusing to leave until she had made a call to a non-existent garage. Hopefully, that would leave the way clear for him.
He kept close to the fence, being careful not to touch it. There were no cameras anywhere near, at least, not that he could see. The sliding doors had closed again, apart from a narrow crack. No way in there. He reached a wall of corrugated iron and began to follow it round, hoping for a secondary entrance. And found one, round the side, not used often. He could tell from the clumps of wild grass that had been allowed to grow in front of it. There was a single lock – a Yale cylinder. Provided it hadn’t been allowed to rust, it would present no problem to Bond who had come equipped. He knelt down and slid open the heel of his left shoe. There was a miniature pick and a tension wrench embedded inside. Bond set to work. Less than two minutes later there was a click and, using all his strength, he was able to wrench open the door. He was in.
The door led to a metal staircase surrounded by a rough, concrete wall. Bond took out his pistol – now fully loaded – and made his way up, listening out for any sounds above the dull throbbing and the clatter of metal against metal that had met his ears the moment he entered. The stairs continued. There were no doors, no corridors on the first two floors. At last he saw an opening ahead of him and, through it, the yellow glow of the warehouse interior. He still had no idea what he was about to find. Could there be a perfectly simple explanation for all this activity? No, dammit. Blue Diamond was meant to be an agency for low-grade contract work and employment and this place advertised itself as storage for heavy plant. Sin was hiding something. There could be no doubt.
Bond emerged onto a narrow gantry high up in the warehouse, with the sloping ceiling just above his head. He looked down in disbelief. He had thought this would be the moment when everything made sense but instead he was more baffled than ever.
The lowboy he had seen earlier had been parked in the middle of the warehouse and now it had been loaded up. A Vanguard rocket was lying there on its side, strapped down by a series of chains in a manner that was somehow reminiscent of Gulliver taken prisoner on the beach. It was an exact duplicate of the rocket he had seen at Wallops Island – even down to the colours and the markings. But there was one significant difference: this rocket clearly wasn’t intended to fly. Only the second and third stages had been constructed – from the nose cone down to the oxidiser tank and rocket motor. The first stage, the one that would actually propel it into the air, was missing. Worse than that, it seemed to have been cut off. The metal skin was torn and truncated as if some giant (Gulliver again) had snapped it in half. Workers – about half of them Korean – were securing it. Others were unfolding a huge tarpaulin. It was about to be transported somewhere and no one was to see what it was.
Looking around him, Bond realised that he had seen the warehouse before. This was where the photograph had been taken – the one he had found in Sin’s office in Germany. There was a second load on the far side of the enclosure, this one, unfortunately, already covered. It wasn’t rocket shaped. It was a large box, big enough to contain a car. The men were preparing to lift it, using a heavy block and tackle. Presumably it was a companion to the rocket. A launch pad? But how could that be when there was only half a rocket to launch?
At any event, Bond now knew that Sin wasn’t sabotaging the Vanguard. He was copying it. Except that couldn’t be right. Why would he bother? And where on earth could he be taking it? Only one thing was certain. Bond had to get out of here and tell Jeopardy what he had found. The two of them had to pass on the information to their respective secret services.
But he couldn’t leave, not yet, not with the puzzle still unsolved. He was in the lion’s den and who could say what other secrets it might conceal? He had seen enough in the warehouse and hurried back down the stairs to the door. Crossing the courtyard would be too dangerous with all the cameras and the guards but that still left the house. And that, surely, was where he would find Sin.
He emerged into the warm night air and continued around the back of the warehouse. The replica of John Keats’s house was ahead of him and there were just fifty yards of open ground to cover. Bond had taken the first three steps when, with a silent explosion, night became day and the entire compound burned itself into the back of his eyes. Every single arc lamp had been turned on, the combined wattage almost blinding after the soft acquiescence of the night. Bond froze where he was, one arm thrown protectively across his face, the Remington M1911 clutched above his head. At the same time, a voice burst out of speakers positioned all around.
‘Attention, Mr Bond! Step forward and show yourself. Throw down your weapon. We have Miss Lane and if you do not comply in ten seconds, she will be dealt with.’ There could be no mistaking what the speaker meant. ‘You will see her at the main gate. The countdown begins now. Ten . . . nine . . .’
Bond squinted through the light. Yes. There she was, standing between two men. She had been hurt. They were having to hold her up.
‘. . . eight . . . seven . . .’
A third man was holding a gun, pointing it at her head. Behind them, the entrance was shut with several more men on guard. More workmen were closing in from all sides. If Bond was going to run, if he seriously thought he could fight his way out, he had to do it now.
‘. . . six . . . five . . . four . . .’
The countdown continued, a grisly reminder of the one that would be taking place on Wallops Island in just over twenty-four hours. What had happened? How had they got the upper hand?
‘. . . three . . .’
Bond had to get the information out. He had to stop the launch. He had to let M know that he had stumbled onto something as bizarre as anything he had ever encountered. But the man with the gun was solid, implacable. Jeopardy was helpless. He couldn’t leave Jeopardy to die.
‘. . . two . . . one . . .’
Holding his Remington so that everyone could see it, Bond walked out into the open. He threw the gun down and stood there waiting as Sin’s men closed in.