Free John Gardner by Goldeneye Page B

what could have been her tomb, that Natalya began to move forward. Slowly at first, and then, as some of her courage returned, more surefooted. She climbed and thought of her grandfather’s big old apple tree she had climbed as a child. For a few moments she seemed to be fantasising that it was the tree itself, not flat and unstable concrete slabs, that it was summer again and her grandfather was chuckling, calling her a little monkey as she went upwards through the branches and leaves.
    Then she remembered Boris, and recalled he was going out for an illegal smoke. She began to call, as she climbed into winter high above her -“Boris! … Boris Ivanovich!
    Boris, can you hear me?” She was out in the cold, fresh, clear night air, standing alone in the snow.
    Tanner was still standing with M and Bond when the screens went blank with a searing white flash.
    “What the bloody hell was that?” Tanner jumped visibly; M flinched, and Bond moved, as though ready to throw himself to one side.
    Seconds later both M and Tanner had grabbed telephones.
    (Far away, Xenia Onatopp and General Ourumov, in the Tigre, felt themselves thrown from side to side as the machine bucked to the snarling rhythms of the dancing snakes of blue electrical fire which reached them, even fifty miles away. Xenia thought to herself that the French had done well. The Tigre was indeed invincible.) Bill Tanner called out from the telephone -“Our satellite’s been knocked out; so have two of the Americans’.
    We’ve got one coming into range any second.” The screens cleared and the satellite images were replaced on the screen. Severnaya dark, except for odd spot fires. Then the dish, tilted and askew, with the wreckage of the burning “Flogger-K’.
    “Good God,’ someone said.
    “Two of the “Floggers” are down. Power’s out.
    M moved closer. “Looks as though the third aircraft went into the dish.” She turned her head and asked Bond, “What do you think, 007?” He had been standing calmly trying to analyse what he could see. “Well, the buildings are standing. No car or truck movement. Not even a headlamp. I’d say EMP.” Tanner nodded. “That would account for the aircraft and satellites..
    “And the cars,’ Bond added.
    Bill Tanner turned to M. “EMP, Ma’am. ElectroMagnetic-Pulse. A first strike weapon developed by.
    M cut in, “I know what EMP is, Mr. Tanner. Developed by both the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War. Someone wrote about the theory after Hiroshima.
    Set off a nuclear device in the upper atmosphere; this creates a pulse - a radiation surge actually - that destroys anything with an electronic circuit.” As she paused, so Tanner spoke again, “The idea was a weapon with which to knock out the enemy’s communications before he… she … they — - could retaliate.” M turned to Bond.
    “So, is this GoldenEye? Does this mean GoldenEye actually exists?’ “Yes.
    “Is there any chance this could be an accident?”
    “Absolutely not, Ma’am, and this would explain the theft of the helicopter. It’s the perfect getaway vehicle if you wanted to steal a GoldenEye. You set the thing in motion, so that nobody can stop it. This, in turn, poses a problem. You have to get clear and wipe out all the evidence at the same time. i suspect GoldenEye is a unique triggering and guidance device. If you want to steal it, clean the place of any traces, you get out in something like Tigre.”
    “So, you think its’s your wretched Janus Crime Syndicate?” There was just a trace of bitterness in her voice.
    “Not necessarily.” Bond shook his head. “I’ve been inside that kind of Russian facility.” He peered at the screens. “The security is, as the younger generation would say, awesome. Voice-print activators only - which means you can keep the need-to-know down to a bare minimum.
    You could even keep Yeltsin out of one of these places.
    You would need two keys to fire the weapons; special access codes