The ship was listing badly to starboard, and the old, well-known scent of explosives was easily recognizable. By now the ship's siren was emitting the short series of blasts signaling abandon ship, calling all passengers to their boat stations – a drill that had been carefully rehearsed as they left Miami two weeks before.
The engines had stopped, but it was not easy to adjust to the slanting deck. Flicka threw off her shoes as they crabbed along making slow progress toward their stateroom on the port side.
A disembodied voice was giving instructions through the ship's communication system, and there was a background of cries edged with panic. As they came to the long row of stateroom doors and large curtained oblong windows set in the superstructure, they could see other passengers trying to keep upright on the slanting surface.
The deck was bathed in light from the emergency floods that had been turned on within seconds of the explosion. Beside the first door an elderly man was trying to assist his wife, who was sprawled on the deck wailing in miserable alarm. Bond went to her immediately, telling the husband to get the life jackets from his stateroom and indicating that Flicka should do the same for them.
The elderly woman had obviously damaged her arm, probably broken it, and a moment later, two of the ship's officers appeared, banging on the stateroom doors and calling for all passengers to muster by the boat station.
Bond was called to assist one of the crew members hacking at a stateroom door where they feared the occupants were somehow trapped, frozen in terror, as well they might be, for Caribbean Prince was listing even more violently. As he moved to help yet another passenger, he saw a deadly flicker of fire coming from the forward companion-way.
"Get to the lifeboats!" he yelled, reaching for the nearest extinguisher, banging the nozzle against one of the stanchions and directing the foam down into the fierce flames that reached upward like terrible claws.
Another of the ship's officers joined him in a battle they were rapidly losing. He crabbed his way aft and dragged another extinguisher to the companionway, once more pouring foam down onto the flames, hearing, in the background, the sound of the lifeboats being lowered. At the same time he was aware of people shouting to him, telling him to get off the ship, but he was already throwing the empty extinguisher to one side and moving for'ard to find a third.
He had gone scarcely two steps when he heard a great whoosh and felt the heat on his back. As he turned, he saw that the officer who had been beside him attacking the fire was enveloped in flames now gushing from belowdecks. The man had become a screaming walking torch, fighting his way toward the ship's rails, but falling before he could get to them. Bond flung his jacket off and leaped toward the doomed man, beating at the fire with the once-elegant dinner jacket, but it was too late. The flames had eaten away at the man's body and his screams had stopped.
Bond himself was now starting to feel the effects of the flame and smoke. His breathing was labored, and he knew that if he stayed on board, there was a distinct possibility of the smoke and heat overcoming him.
He lunged toward the ship's listing rail, climbed over, and leaped clear into the water below, immediately striking out for the nearest lifeboat.
The coxswain of one of the lifeboats spotted Bond in the water, and, in an act of great courage, turned back toward the crippled ship to help drag him from the water. Once aboard he looked for Fredericka, and to his relief, found her huddled in a corner of the boat.
The lifeboats were enclosed by tight orange-colored tarpaulins stretched over a light alloy framework, with thick mica panels for the coxswain and as light sources along the side. There were some forty people – passengers and crew – in the one that had rescued Bond, and once the craft hit the water, the survivors had become aware that the sea was less friendly than it had seemed on board Caribbean Prince. The lifeboat bounced and rolled, churning through the water with a low, almost sullen hum from its engine.
By craning to look through one of the forward windshields, he was aware of two other small boats nearby, and he caught a glimpse of the cruise ship, lit up overall but seeming to be dangerously top-heavy, and sparkling with the fire that at least one man had died fighting.
To his rear, a medical orderly worked on the elderly woman who had fallen close to her stateroom door. She was still groaning with pain, so Bond worked his way aft to see if he could assist.
"Broken arm, shoulder, and maybe a leg also," the orderly said with a distinct Scandinavian accent.
"Do we know what happened yet?"
"She fell."
"No, the explosion. Do we know what it was?"
The orderly shrugged. "An officer said he thought this was some mechanical problem. With the engines. An explosion with the engines. Could have been something those crooks set to explode after making their getaway, though."
Through one of the mica ports, he glimpsed Caribbean Prince, listing and wallowing, her lights and the fire blazing, throwing an eerie glow across the water.
Incongruously, an elderly female voice muttered, "What waste. You'd think they'd have turned the lights off when we abandoned ship."
"It never happened before," the orderly said, as though he could hardly believe it had occurred now.
No, Bond thought. No, it certainly never happened before, and it certainly was not the engines. Over many years he had become sensitive to distinctive odors, and he was certain about this one. While he was fighting the fire, his nostrils had been full of the scent of explosives.
The same aroma, explosives and the stink of smoke, continued to hang around them, and was still there at five-thirty in the morning, as he stood beside Flicka von Grüsse at the rail of one of the larger cruise ships. Several ships – including two of the mammoth liners from another company – had hastened to the stricken ship. Passengers had been rescued by the two larger cruise liners, and now, in the dawn, other craft were standing off while two U.S. Navy vessels were close by Caribbean Prince, having put out the fire, and were bent on taking her in tow, trying to keep her steady in the water.
"The ghost of Christmas past," Flicka muttered, giving Bond a quizzical took.
He nodded, his mind obviously far away, though he knew what she meant: stubble on his chin, hair tousled, the pair of ill-fitting jeans and denim shirt they had found for him to replace his soaking wet clothes. "You're not exactly a fashion plate yourself." As he said it, Bond reflected that this was not altogether correct. Even with no makeup, and the white Bill Blass evening gown – the one with the devastating slit almost to the left thigh – in a state similar to that of his own clothes, Flicka von Grüsse managed to remain stunning. "Girl of my dreams," he often called her, and the events of the past few hours seemed to have hardly touched her. In her current disheveled state, she could have walked into a reception for the royal family and still caused heads to turn at her poise and elegance.
The after-scent of the disaster dragged his train of thought away again. There had been no shots of battle, no urgency of attack, yet he felt as though the crippling of Caribbean Prince had been an act of war, the most likely explanation being the one suggested by the medical orderly – that the pirates had set charges to explode after they left the ship, probably in one of the lifeboats, or even in a craft arranged and factored into their plan.
Later, he was to remark that the cruise ship incident was the true beginning of the dangers that were to come in the next few months. He could still hear the Captain's voice coming through the speakers, giving the order to abandon ship, just as, in his mind, he saw the fragment of fear on the faces of officers and crew. In many ways, "abandon ship" was an apt command. After years of working for his old service and his country, Bond felt he was abandoning ship by taking command of the Two Zeros and leaving a familiar world.