Everything was white: the walls, the work surfaces, the porcelain sinks, the protective clothes and face masks, the neon lights – even the air being blasted out of steel grilles after hidden machinery had chilled it and sucked it clean. The people employed here were a world apart from those working on the other side of the compound. They were phantoms, utterly silent, moving in slow motion as if performing a macabre dance among the test tubes and Bunsen burners.
Bond had walked into hell’s kitchen. He could think of no other words to describe it. For this was the laboratory where Jean-Paul Scipio and Irwin Wolfe, in business together, had embarked on the mass production of high-grade heroin with an expertise and a sophistication that had never been seen before.
For the past twenty years, heroin production in the south of France had been a cottage industry. There were tiny villages all around Marseilles where run-down farmhouses and villas had been taken over and converted into makeshift factories that could be closed immediately, the moment the police got anywhere near. They might be tucked away in the basements or in disused kitchens with propane gas heaters fitted into stripped-down refrigerators for the drying process and old washing-machine engines converted into mixers. The conditions would be filthy, the operators often so clumsy that it was a miracle they could produce anything of value at all.
It took twenty-four hours to produce twenty pounds of pure heroin and the process was complicated, fraught with dangers. If the morphine mix was overheated, it would explode. The fumes given off were enough to knock out an elephant and a leak could well kill everyone in the room. The purity of the finished product varied from batch to batch – and anyway it would be cut and recut many times before it reached the street.
Of course there were a handful of criminals who had proven themselves to be masters of their art. Antoine Guerini had been famous for the quality of his merchandise, while Joseph Cesari, who had learned his skills in Bandol, produced heroin so pure that it earned him the nickname ‘Monsieur 98 per cent’. It was said that he could process an astonishing seventeen and a half pounds of morphine at a time. But these were the exceptions. The majority of heroin producers were amateurs.
James Bond knew that this laboratory was unique. What he was seeing took heroin production to an entirely new level.
The room was large, filled with equipment that was expensive and brand new: vacuum pumps, electric blenders, venting hoods, electric drying ovens and sophisticated exhaust systems. Close to where he and Sixtine were standing, still framed by the doorway, a man in a white jacket was leaning over the very latest reflux condenser, examining the contents through the glass, while next to him another man loaded gleaming flasks and test tubes into an autoclave, preparing them for sterilisation. There were shelves stacked with measuring cups, syringes, suction pumps, funnels and filter paper and Bond guessed that every item would have been accounted for down to the last strip of litmus. This was a meticulous operation, the IBM of narcotics.
And there was the final product. Bond saw four women in white coats, hair nets and plastic gloves looking bored as they packed the fine white powder into bags, weighing them on electric scales before sealing them. This would be the last stopping point on a journey that had begun in the opium fields of Turkey or Afghanistan. The morphine base would have been smuggled into Marseilles, probably in fishing boats, before being brought here. It had been refined in a solution of alcohol and activated charcoal until the precious flakes had begun to form. And where next? Bond thought he had a good answer to that question.
But it still made no sense.
The French authorities had been investigating and M had sent two agents down to the Riviera because the narcotics supply had come to a halt. They had all been concerned that the criminal activity was being replaced by something else. But looking at the evidence in front of his eyes, Bond could only conclude that the supply line had been brought to a deliberate halt while tons of the drug had gone into production. The obvious conclusion was that Scipio was stockpiling it. But to what purpose?
Bond had been standing at the edge of the laboratory for only a few seconds and even as these thoughts stormed through his mind, he realised that he and Sixtine were in the greatest danger. They had penetrated the very heart of the operation. They had unmasked a criminal enterprise working inside a respected, international business. Getting in had been one thing. Getting out would be quite another. What mattered more to Bond than anything else was that he should relay the information he had discovered back to M in London.
Standing next to him, Sixtine grabbed hold of his arm. ‘This is crazy,’ she whispered. She had also worked out what was going on. ‘Wolfe is already a millionaire many times over. He’s sick . . . maybe dying. Why would he want to get mixed up in narcotics?’
‘Later,’ Bond said. ‘We have to go.’
It was already too late. A man wearing a long, white coat was walking over to them. From a distance he had looked like a doctor but as he drew closer Bond saw that he was unshaven, unfriendly, some sort of supervisor. He had the eyes of a shark. He already knew something was wrong.
He stopped in front of Bond and Sixtine and pointed down. ‘Vos souliers,’ he said.
It was as simple as that. Everyone in the laboratory wore protective covers on their shoes. Bond and Sixtine had their stolen coats and caps but the man had noticed their feet were uncovered and that was what had brought him across.
Bond was about to answer but it was no good.
‘Vos cartes d’identité!’ the man demanded.
‘Certainement!’ Bond reached into his inside pocket as if about to draw out an ID card. Instead, he lashed out, his three extended fingers driving into the man’s throat, cutting off the oxygen. Bond caught him as he collapsed and lowered him to the ground.
For just a fraction of a second he hoped that everyone in the room was so focused on what they were doing that they wouldn’t notice what had just taken place . . . and indeed there was a moment of frozen silence while the work went on as before. But then half a dozen men came running towards him from all four corners of the laboratory and a moment later every alarm in the compound began to shriek.
Bond turned to run, then thought better of it. He twisted round and, taking out his Beretta, fired half a dozen shots, aiming not at the men but at the machinery. Whatever happened to him and Sixtine in the next few minutes, he was determined that he wasn’t going to leave this obscene place intact. The first bullets smashed glass vials, the next fanned into the circuitry of the blenders and the centrifuges, severing the electric cables. The result was exactly what he had hoped for. There were two or three blinding sparks as the machines short-circuited just as the liquid from the broken vessels came splashing down. He could smell the fumes he had released. What happened next was inevitable. As the laboratory staff screamed and scattered, a great mushroom of flame billowed outwards, rolling over the surfaces and reaching all the way to the ceiling. At once, a sprinkler system burst into operation. A torrent of water cascaded down, drawing a curtain between Bond and the guards closing in on him. He fired off two more shots, emptying his gun, then left, pushing through the two swing doors.
Sixtine was already ahead of him. The strange thing was that she didn’t even seem to be in a hurry. She had examined her options with the same concentration that she brought to a deck of cards before it was dealt and she already knew what she was going to do.
‘The van,’ she said. As they reached the corner, a guard appeared, rushing towards them. Sixtine had her own gun in her hand and shot him. ‘Or one of the jeeps. There’s no other way out of here.’ She had finished her sentence, barely noticing the interruption.
‘Right . . .’
‘How are you for ammunition?’
‘Empty.’
She grimaced. ‘Then maybe you should have thought twice before shooting the hell out of that lab.’
They reached the next door and opened it cautiously. They were looking back out into the open air and there were people everywhere. There must have been a protocol that directed all the personnel to head for some general assembly point when the alarm sounded. And yet, for the first time, the enemy had made a serious miscalculation. If everyone had stayed at their work stations, if the compound had been clear, Bond and Sixtine would have been picked out easily. As it was, the pair could hide in plain sight. All they had to do was keep their heads down and move at the same pace as everyone else and they would effectively become invisible, disappearing into the crowd.
Sixtine had arrived at the same conclusion. She slipped her gun into her pocket and began to walk, keeping her face hidden. At the same time, the alarm abruptly cut out. It had made its point.
‘Wolfe can’t have known about this,’ she muttered as they pressed forward. ‘He’s made a fortune out of film. Why would he risk everything to get into narcotics?’
‘He can’t not have known about this,’ Bond returned. ‘Hiding a heroin factory inside a film-production plant in the middle of nowhere . . . in a way, it’s brilliant. But he must have cooperated. You’re not telling me he never noticed?’
‘It would certainly explain why he never brought me here.’
‘And there’s something else . . .’
‘What?’
‘The Mirabelle . . .’
But before he could explain what he had worked out, there was a rush of three armed men pushing through the crowd and heading past them towards the laboratory. Bond broke off and he and Sixtine separated, knowing instinctively that the guards were looking for two intruders. They would be safer walking apart.
It was only when the baker’s van was in sight that they came back together again and Bond saw at once that they couldn’t use it. Someone must have noticed that it had been parked there far too long and a guard carrying a light machine gun was posted beside the front cabin, waiting for the baker to return. A short distance away, the man Bond had seen earlier was still working on the Willys MB French army jeep but even as the two of them approached, he slammed the hood and wiped his hands on a rag. Bond made his decision. He just hoped the mechanic had done a good job.
Ignoring the van, he continued as if heading for the kitchen area then, at the last moment, swerved to the right. The mechanic stared at him, aware that something was wrong. But too late. Bond grabbed hold of the side of the jeep and used it to lever himself into the air, both legs lashing out, his feet slamming into the man’s head. The guard at the van saw what had happened and shouted out, bringing his machine gun round. Sixtine shot him in the chest.
The sound of gunfire changed everything. The factory workers scattered and now, finally, they were alone on the empty ground with the sun pinning them down like a huge spotlight, making them an obvious target. There were three gunshots from the watchtower, spitting up the dust close to their feet. Bond leapt into the driver’s seat of the jeep and flicked the ignition switch. Sixtine scrambled in beside him, twisting round to fire at two men who were racing towards them across the concourse. One of them went down. The other veered away and took cover.
Sixtine reloaded.
Another gunshot slammed into the door and ricocheted with a loud twang. Bond wrenched at the gearstick and spun the jeep into reverse even as two more bullets hit the side panels. The mechanic was unconscious in front of him. The guard Sixtine had shot was lying face down to one side. Bond drew a savage arc in the dust, furiously manoeuvred the gears and sent the jeep hurtling towards the barrier and the way out.
‘Get down!’ he shouted.
There were two guards in front of him. They had come out of the concrete block and were emptying their pistols into the windscreen. Sixtine crouched down. His hands still gripping the steering wheel, Bond leaned sideways, taking partial cover behind the dashboard. The windscreen shattered. A second later, the jeep hit the barrier, smashing it. Bond felt the vehicle shudder once and then again as it rammed into the two men, batting them away. There was another gunshot from the tower, the bullet tearing into the canvas seat behind him. But then they were away, speeding up the lane, leaving the empty security block, the unconscious men and the broken barrier behind.
Bond and Sixtine straightened up. Bond had thought she might be shaken but she looked exhilarated.
‘We need to head back to Menton,’ she said. She looked behind them. For the time being, the lane was empty. ‘If we go further into the hills, the road goes on for miles and they may be able to catch us. But if we go the other way, there’s not much they can do once we get to the sea.’
She was right. The choice was between a corkscrew ride into the mountains, climbing ever further into wasteland and forest, or a fast run down to a busy coastal road with traffic, police cars and plenty of witnesses. The jeep seemed to have shrugged off the injuries inflicted by all the gunfire but Bond would feel more confident if it was heading downhill. How long would it take before the guards came after them? The engine coughed and he cast his eye at the fuel gauge. It was touching red: the tank was almost empty. That was one twist of the knife he hadn’t considered.
Branches and leaves raced past them in a jumble. With the glass shot out in front of them, the wind hammered into their faces, sending Sixtine’s hair flying. She had reloaded her Browning and twisted round in her seat, ready to use it. But for the time being, they were still alone. The outer barrier and concrete administration block rose up ahead. Two more guards were waiting for them but they were young and nervous. They had begun firing too soon, quickly emptying their guns, and could only hurl themselves out of the way as Bond slammed the jeep through the barrier and onto the last section of the lane. A minute later, he reached the main road and spun round without stopping, the tyres howling as they bit into the concrete.
Bond was beginning to relax. The jeep was handling perfectly even if it must be wolfing down what little fuel remained, and Castellar, the first village, was only a few miles away. It was beginning to look as if they had made it to safety. What next? He would report to M that evening and afterwards the whole thing could be handed over to the French authorities. The plant would be closed down, Irwin Wolfe arrested. Finding Scipio might be more difficult but that wasn’t his business. Basically, he had done exactly what he had been told.
He might even ask for a leave of absence. Why not? He wanted to take Sixtine to a big city that he knew well, somewhere he would be on his own territory. Rome perhaps. The Hotel Majestic in the Via Veneto. Dinner at Alfredo’s with its famous fettuccine, a midnight stroll along the Tiber and then, later . . .
‘James.’
He heard the worry in her voice and glanced in the mirror. He saw them at once. They were half a mile behind, only specks, but already closing in. Not cars. Motorbikes. At least three of them. He could hear the distant roar of the throttles. Inch by inch they were expanding in the mirror. Maybe he had two or three minutes before they caught up.
He stamped on the accelerator but the jeep was already doing the best it could. They had reached Castellar! Now the die was cast. The road swept them along, giving them no alternative but to follow the hill down into the village centre. There were no turn-offs. They were hemmed in by olive trees and vegetable gardens on one side and a high stone wall with a church on the other. They spun round a corner between tumbling bushes and a sheer drop to the terraces below, the wheels kicking up a miniature storm of gravel and dust. The further they went, the narrower the road became. The motorbikes were filling the mirror now. Black BMWs. Bond could make out the hunched shapes of the riders leaning over the windscreens.
No! There it was ahead of him, the worst bad luck. The wretched donkey with its cart filled with melons, the same one that he had seen the day before, once again blocking the way! Its owner was tugging at the reins, urging it to move forward but the animal seemed to be in no particular mood to cooperate. Bond swore. He couldn’t slow down but there was no way around it. One side of the road consisted of houses packed tightly together with balconies, outdoor staircases and brightly coloured washing hanging out to dry. No alleyways. No openings. The other was barred off by a long line of metal bollards with the hillside beyond, a series of gardens and orchards dropping away steeply to the next bend in the road. The village was suddenly busy. There were women shopping, old men outside a café playing backgammon, children chasing each other round the tables. Two stalls had been set up, one selling cheese, the other saucissons. Just to add to the atmosphere, a grandfather was sitting on a stool playing an accordion. All it needed, Bond reflected bitterly, was a couple of cockerels and a few baskets of geraniums and he could have made a fortune selling the postcard.
He slowed down. The motorbikes were right behind him. There were five of them in all: black and silver, as mean as hornets, whipping along with their glittering chrome and exposed drive shafts. Some of the riders had taken out guns, balancing them against the hand grips. He suddenly became aware that Sixtine had left her seat and was clambering into the back. Looking over his shoulder, he saw her jerk open the ammunition box and pull out a magazine clip. She rammed it into the gun and pulled back the cocking handle. Bond’s hands tightened on the steering wheel.
Seconds later there was a burst of gunfire that sounded deafening at close quarters. The nearest two riders were blown out of their seats, their bodies cartwheeling through the air as their machines toppled and slid away beneath them. At the same time, the street ahead of the jeep emptied as if hit by a tornado. People ran in all directions. The donkey whinnied and jerked forward, scattering the melons. Children were grabbed and swept into doorways. As Sixtine let loose with a second burst, Bond shouted ‘Hang on!’ and stamped down on the accelerator, swerving to avoid the tumbling melons. The jeep leapt forward, hitting a table outside a café, sending glasses and a deck of cards flying, then crashed through the cheese stall. He heard screaming but the whole village had become a blur. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead. The shooting stopped. As Bond steered the jeep out of the other side of the village, Sixtine climbed back next to him.
‘It’s jammed!’ she shouted.
‘It did the job!’ Bond replied.
It hadn’t quite. Two motorcyclists remained, dropping back, warily keeping their distance now but still not letting the jeep out of their sight. Bond was determined to lose them and took the first hairpin bend at breakneck speed, the wheels of the jeep almost leaving the ground as they slalomed across the surface of the road. Before they’d had time to recover, he’d swung them viciously the other way, anticipating the next corner. The jeep rocked from side to side as if protesting the punishment it was being given. Briefly, the front fender came into contact with the wall at the side of the road. There was the scream of metal tearing and Bond had to fight for control to stop the whole thing turning over. The engine coughed a second time. The needle was now well into the red. Bond swore quietly. They must already be running on fumes. How much further could they go before grinding to a halt? He twisted the wheel and they rounded the second corner and plunged down, the road steeper than ever.
The Mediterranean lay ahead of them, a dazzling blue that stretched out from the haphazard contours of the shoreline to the straight certainty of the horizon far away. Bond gunned for it, going hell for leather. He wanted to be out of the hills, perhaps even out of France. There was a thought! If he could make it to the Italian border, there would be police in patrol cars. He wondered what they would make of a fully armed jeep, riddled with bullet holes, trying to leave the country. Well, let them arrest him. Right now, a night in jail – locked behind solid doors and surrounded by police – sounded almost attractive.
‘They’re dropping back,’ Sixtine exclaimed.
It was true. The two surviving motorcyclists seemed to have lost heart. The distance between them and the jeep had doubled. Even so, Bond didn’t slow down. He glanced at the speedometer. Sixty-five miles per hour. Almost as far as the speedometer was able to go. Two more bends and they would be down at sea level. They had got away with it!
‘When we get into Menton, I’m going to buy you—’ Bond began.
‘James!’
She had seen them carefully spaced out on the road ahead. He saw them too. A dull shade of silver. They were shaped like pyramids but with four separate protruding spikes made out of thin-gauge steel. Each one was about four inches long. They were inspired by medieval caltrops, devices used to cripple horses, but when the Germans had dropped them on airfields and roads in the last war, they had referred to them as crowsfeet. He recognised them only when it was too late.
He was already braking but the jeep had driven over them and the tyres exploded, the rubber torn to shreds. He lost control at once. It was as if the steering column had been severed and the wheel span uselessly in his hands. They were either going to crash into the hillside or be thrown over the edge of the cliff. Now it was in the hands of the gods.
‘Brace yourself!’ Bond shouted.
Sixtine was already clutching the dashboard with one hand, the other curved round the edge of the broken windscreen. He had one last image of her, resolute and unafraid. Then the jeep came to a corner and, unable to turn, launched itself into the air. For a tiny eternity they hung there, suspended in space. Bond saw the sea rushing towards them, replacing the sky. It came closer and closer, a blue wall that suddenly looked as solid as steel. He felt himself tipping forward and pressed his hands against the steering wheel, pinning himself in his seat. They fell and they fell, everything silent now in the last moments before the end.
They hit the sea with all the force of a missile strike. Bond was aware of the water erupting around them. Without the windscreen to protect him, his head was torn backwards, almost separating from his shoulders. At once he was sucked under. The jeep that had saved them had now become an instrument of death, threatening to lock them in its grip as it sank. At the last moment, Bond had managed to gulp down some air but he knew he had only seconds to get back to the surface. Water filled his vision. He was aware of angry bubbles erupting all around him. He tried to free his legs but they were pinned under the steering wheel. He could feel the pressure building in his ears as he was dragged ever deeper and twisted and writhed, desperately trying to escape. And what of Sixtine? She was no longer next to him. If Bond was going to die, he would die alone.
He bent himself forward and jack-knifed over the steering wheel. He felt the blunt edge of the windscreen slicing into his stomach, his thighs and then, finally, his ankles. He was free! How deep was he? There was no air in his lungs and he wanted to breathe. No. Keep your lips closed. Feel for the right direction. Swim, damn you. It can’t be too far.
Bond could imagine the jeep continuing silently below him, disappearing into the void. He began to swim, one hand above his head, forcing himself upwards, his eyes closed. It seemed an impossibly long way. He kicked out six times before he felt his fingers break through the surface, the rest of him following a second later, gasping for air, water streaming down his face. He looked around him. Sixtine was there. She had made it out. He swam over to her.
‘Are you OK?’
She nodded, too exhausted to speak.
Bond turned round. With the tyres of the jeep in ribbons, they had left the road and driven off the cliff about thirty yards above them. Looking at the distance they had fallen, Bond was surprised they had managed to survive. He guessed that the metal bodywork of the jeep had, at least to some extent, protected them. The water was warm. There was a ribbon of sand and shingle running alongside the foot of the cliff but no swimmers, no one in deckchairs. Everything had happened so quickly, it was possible that nobody had seen it. They were on their own.
‘Can you swim back?’ Bond asked.
Sixtine was treading water. ‘I can’t think of any other way to get there,’ she said.
They set off together. The beach was very close. It didn’t take them long to reach the edge of the water and then to drag themselves onto the sand. For a moment they lay there, panting, feeling the warm sunshine on their backs. Bond was relieved. It could have been a lot worse. In a way, the entire operation had been clumsy and ill-judged: driving into the compound without any real plan and no back-up, aimlessly stumbling around, crashing their way out. It might have told them what they needed to know but they had been lucky to escape alive.
The crunch of footsteps on the shingle made him look up. There were two men, both of them dressed in waxed leather jackets, holding guns. They had climbed off their motorbikes, leaving them parked on the edge of the road. From behind him came the sound of an outboard motor. Bond turned and saw a four-seat speedboat cruising towards them. It was manned by the two thugs he had already encountered at Ferrix Chimiques. Carlo and Simone. Those had been the names Scipio had addressed them by. The one with the broken nose stood at the wheel. The other was cradling a rifle. Bond glanced at Sixtine and saw in her eyes what he already knew for himself.
It could have been worse. And it was.