Bond signaled and saw a large heavy van moving to the left behind him. He opened the throttle wide, leaned with the tilt as the Daytona began to angle over, heard the rasping horn of the van as it braked when he crossed directly in front of it to get into the far-right lane. The exit ramp came up very fast, and he felt the rear wheel begin to lose traction swinging outward. He shifted down, tapped the brake, and hauled the bike back to the straight and level as he shot into the exit.
Now he knew where they were heading, for he caught a glimpse of the green and white sign that said "Itálica." They were going into the very womb of the Roman Empire, the remains of the large Roman town where both the Emperors Hadrian and Trajan had been born. Ahead was a ticket point with a large notice in four languages saying the ruins were closed. He also saw the brake lights of the Harley as it whipped through the entrance, dipped, and headed up the path leading to the sprawl of skeleton buildings rising up the hillside. A great view to his right, and, slightly ahead, the steep slope that, like a bowl in the earth, contained the remains of Itálica's amphitheater. He was chasing a pair of modern murderers into one of Europe's cradles of history.
Once more Bond opened the throttle in an attempt to get even closer, but this was no place for speed. He saw the bike slew to the left, down what had once been a narrow cobbled street, but when he reached the turn there was no sign of his prey. He retarded the throttle so that the bike was barely idling, straining in the saddle to try and catch the sound of their engine, but the world had suddenly gone silent and his mind sprang forward, latching on to the worst possibility – that the couple on the Harley had a prearranged meeting here in the shadows. If that was the case, he had lost, so he might just as well get out now and save what was left.
Bond reminded himself that he had never given up on an assignment yet, reaching inside the leather jacket to slowly remove the ASP and one spare magazine. He switched off the Daytona's engine, then, with his back against the old dry and crumbling remains of the buildings, he inched forward. Instinctively, he felt that he was being watched.
It was some twenty yards to the end of the street. The first shot came as he reached the point where the cobbles ended and the remains of the buildings ran into what was virtually a T-junction. He heard the crack as the bullet hit the stone just to the left of his head, gouging a small crater, splaying dust that fell across his visor.
He ducked to the right, flicking the visor up and jumping into the ruined street that formed the crosspiece of the T, fanning his hands in a wide circle, gripping the butt of the pistol a shade too tightly.
There was movement to his left and he reacted, swinging his body in that direction without moving his feet, squeezing off the standard two shots. The figure was too quick for him, ducking back down an alley before the first bullet struck the wall where, a split second earlier, the man had been standing.
He turned again, knowing that the two men were trying to circle him, coming in a pincer movement. Sweeping his hands from left to right, back hard against the stone, he whirled in the direction of the target he had just missed. As he wheeled to his left a second time, something moved in the periphery of his vision. This time he was faster, hands coming up to a firing position and centering the guttersnipe sight of the ASP on the black-clad figure's chest.
The two rounds he fired both slammed into the target, ripping at the leather, sending a sickening gout of blood and viscous matter into the wall behind him. Now the odds had evened.
He turned left again, reached the junction where a line of uneven ruins made another rough street, parallel to the one in which he had left the Daytona. For a second his mind drifted and he felt that he was among ghosts, the men, women, and children who had once peopled this place; laughing, arguing, loving, and dying. Taking a deep breath he moved, stepping out cleanly, in a firing position, ready to take out anything that lay in his path.
The street was empty, but he could see that the man he stalked might easily be crouched within one of the undulating, fragmented buildings. The ground under his feet began to angle down. For a second he looked past the end of this row of bleached masonry and saw the beginning of the fantastic view that looked out right across the Guadalquivir Plain. This one lapse of attention almost cost him his life, for this time two bullets came from the left, shattering the stillness and hitting the old stonework to ricochet with a deadly whine within inches of his face.
He returned the fire, shooting only in the general direction from which it had come. In the quiet that followed he could hear the thudding of boots moving away from the clumps of stone.
He took off down what was left of the street, changing magazines as he did so, feeling a terrible draft of frustration as a motorcycle engine burst into life from nearby. The second killer had got to his – Bond's – machine, and he hurtled down the slight hill, pistol still in both hands as he came out on the edge of the ruins. He saw the motorbike moving slowly to his left, disappearing from view, toward the plain that stretched below.
As he reached the open he saw it again, rushing down a grassy slope, heading straight for the remains of the town's amphitheater, now an irregular oval of stone benches, with the big acting area far below. The Daytona was bumping almost casually down what had once been an aisle leading through the seating, the rider trying desperately to put on speed, but braking constantly to keep balance on the sheer angle of the hillside.
It was a long shot for a pistol, but his hands were steady as he brought the sights to bear. Later he realized that he must have fired off practically a whole magazine of ammunition. He felt the weapon jumping in his hands and saw the little explosions of dust around the motorbike, then the two shots that caught its rider in the back, lifting him into the air and returning him to the saddle, his body slumping over the handlebars. As the Daytona slewed to one side, now out of control, Bond reflexed, putting two more shots in the vicinity of the target.
The rider was still actually on the bike as it toppled over, the leather strap of the satchel slung across him over the right shoulder so that the pouch rested against his left hip as the bike and body slid in a long jarring skid down into the acting area of the amphitheater.
It was Bond's last shot that hit the gas tank.
He saw the flame dance from the bike before he heard the roar of the explosion. The fire seemed to flicker and then rise, enveloping machine, rider, and the satchel he carried in what looked like an unquenchable blossom of flame.
Bond leaped forward, running at full tilt down through one of the aisles toward the disaster – here, where hundreds of people had laughed and cried, he imagined that he could hear cries urging him on. By the time he got to the furnace bursting around the motorcycle, devouring its last rider, he realized that the cries were real, but they came from Spanish police officers ringing the edge of the bowl above him.
The smell of burning flesh wrapped around his nostrils as he plunged a gloved hand into the fire and pulled at the blackened satchel that was just about to be eaten by the flames.
10 – Cathy and Anna
In spite of the arrangements that had been made between MicroGlobe One and the Spanish authorities, there were a lot of questions to be answered. There were no fewer than six police cars, several motorcycle officers, and two ambulances parked in the area that usually contained the cars of visitors.
The police showed little respect, and immediately treated Bond as though he were a renegade villain, despite his telling them that they should get in touch with certain senior Spanish intelligence officers whose names he carried in his head. Even though he argued, they removed the blackened satchel saying that this could be used as evidence. As for the ASP automatic pistol, it was wrested from him and treated as if it were Jack the Ripper's original knife.