"Yes, indeed, the Tigre its a wonderful thing; and it also vanished from the face of the earth. Any ideas on that, Commander Bond?"
"That's its function in life, Ma'am. The Tigre's entire purpose is to be invisible. "Yes, but..
"But half the French airforce were scrambled, every tracking station was put on alert? Yes, about twenty minutes after it was stolen. I have my theory on how that little trick was accomplished."
"How?"
"With what that thing carries, it can remain invisible, except to the naked eye, for up to twenty-four hours. I think the thieves simply put the chopper down in some deserted area - not difficult in the Alps - and camouflaged it, waiting until nightfall and for the search to go cold.
Then they simply took off again and did the trip in easy stages.
M thought about this for some time, her brow wrinkled, fingers drumming on the desk. "We've done all we can to track the thing.
Every last piece of electronic listening and satellite surveillance has the profile. It can't hide for ever.
Bond wanted to say something like, "You want to bet?" but controlled his urge as she nodded - a gesture of terse dismissal.
He was almost at the door when a sudden buzz on M's intercom slowed him down.
"They've found the helicopter, the Tigre." Moneypenny sounded breathless. "They would like you to come down to the Operations Room as soon as possible. Mr. Tanner says it is somewhat urgent."
"You go ahead, 007." M had already begun to busy herself at the desk. "I'll be down shortly."
"Typical,' he thought, but acknowledged the instruction calmly. "Where have they found the damned thing?" he asked himself.
His intuition told him that the Operations Room had unpleasant news in store, but he had no idea of how serious the situation would really turn out to be.
Some fifty miles inland from the furthest tip of northern Russia where the land spits out into the Arctic Ocean, there is a ruin that was once Severnaya Station, an operational control post for some of the Soviet Union's most terrifying weapons of mass destruction. The ground around the area is for the most part flat, and usually strewn with ice and snow for most of the year.
About half-an-hour before Bond was summoned to the Operations Room at the headquarters of the Secret Intelligence Service in London, a sled, drawn by four dogs, bounced and rolled its way towards the little parcel of ruined buildings. The man who stood at the back of the sled was a Yuit Eskimo, and he came from the small settlement close to what had once been a whole village, some two miles from Severnaya Station.
After the people had come to build the now ruined station, many of the Yuit had died from diseases brought by the strangers. Only the hardy ones remained, now four families were left in the settlement.
They merely wanted to live as their people had always lived, so they had made themselves useful to the strangers just as he was doing by travelling to the nearest township and collecting artifacts which he could sell when the troglodytes came up from under the ground, which they did every six months or so.
The Yuit was very tired: anxious to see his family again for the entire trip had taken the best part of a week.
Though he would never know it, the accident occurred because of his fatigue and the pace at which he ran the dogs. He did not even see the boulder peeping from the slick ground. The lead dog saw the danger a fraction too late, swerved to avoid the obstacle and swung the sled into an impossible turn. The runners hit the boulder off centre and the driver was thrown hard against a cluster of rocks and ice.
Even with the layers of fur and the big hood he wore, the man broke several bones including his neck. He tried to move but could not even stir for the pain. He lay there in the snow, with the dogs whining and- clustering around him. He made a supreme effort, one last great push through the agony, attempting to get up. This last action killed him and he dropped back onto the ground, a little bundle of fur.
The dogs gathered around him for a while, as though trying to give their master some warmth to revive him.
After ten minutes or so they sat down and waited. Eventually the lead dog would guide them back to the tiny settlement, but for the moment they kept a vigil over their dead master. Nobody could know how this accident and the unsupervised dog team would save another life in the next few hours.
It was quite soon after the sled accident that the Tigre helicopter arrived, bearing its two uninvited guests.
Both British and American analysts had shown an interest in the seemingly defunct Severnaya Station. From the big satellites they had many pictures of the area which the Russians claimed had been taken off the operational list for the past two years. The pictures showed ruin and decay, except for one thing - the huge radio telescope dish that appeared to grow from the ground. The dish had been there for some years, but the pictures seemed to show that it occasionally changed.
The analysts maintained that over a very short period of time the dish had become larger and that it moved now and then. There were sceptics, of course, some of them with a great deal of experience and knowledge.
The latter pointed out that the dish might well move with the wind, and the idea that it had become larger was an optical illusion caused by changes in the weather, and different angles of the sun.
In fact the dish was larger, and it did move at the command of men and women hidden deep in the earth, some thirty feet below the surface, for the Severnaya Station was far from dormant.
The dish, at this very moment, was locked onto a forgotten piece of former Soviet space junk - in reality a fully operational satellite - over the Middle East It was being controlled by a young woman sitting at a work-station in a well-lit, windowless, scrupulously clean, spacious computer room.
There were roughly a dozen such men and women, all working in this section of the complex. Not one of them was over forty years of age and they had been chosen from a list of hundreds of potential computer scientists throughout the Federation of Russian States.
Doors to kitchens, rest rooms, dining and sleeping facilities led off from this technical area, and a thick glass wall divided the scientists from a control room, manned by several men and women in uniform. This second section ~J'J~ U ~ ~ y ~ contained a long console replete with digital electronic instruments and switches topped by a vast screen, blank at this moment. Sunk into the wall behind this complex control area, was a brilliant red safe. Next to the safe in scarlet lettering was a notice in Russian which said Locked.
Authorization Code Required, and as an extra precaution, a steel electronic gate secured by steel plates directly in front of the safe.
Out among the lines of computers, the girl manipulating the satellite was tall, slender and dark with high cheek bones and clear brown eyes. What marked this girl, Natalya Simonova, from the other technicians was her neatness and the clothes she wore - a long black skirt and a ~bite shirt covered by a patterned waistcoat. Many of her colleagues wore the untidy, shapeless grunge look, or worse. The man to her right was clad in dirty jeans, a Whited magazine T-shirt and a black leather motorbike jacket. His hair looked as though it had seen neither shampoo nor comb in a week and his attitude was one of an edgy spaced-out cyberpunk. Boris Grishenko was indeed all of these things and tolerated by those who controlled the establishment because he was undoubtedly the most brilliant scientist in the entire complex.
Natalya spoke quietly into the small mike attached to a headset "Rotate right sixty degrees, ascend to one hundred kilometers.
The blinking satellite symbol on her monitor moved at bet bidding.
She smiled as though she had just taught a clever trick to a pet. Her delight was interrupted by a miniacal scream of laughter from Boris.
"I've done it. Defle it..
Natalya glanced at her friend, Anna, who was seated at the terminal on her left. Anna rolled her eyes and made a gesture with her hand which meant to show that he was unhinged.
"Natalya, come and see what I've done." He had gone into hyper cr
azy mode, so she walked over and looked at his set-up. Boris, being Boris, had several screens set up in front of him. "I'm in!" he laughed, a tuneless cackle.
On one screen she saw the Seal of the US Department of Justice.
"Christ, Boris, you've hacked into the US Department of Justice? Do you know what will happen if they trace it? If they trace it to here?"
"Sure, the Chief of Computers'll call me a genius, move me back to Moscow and give me a million bucks - which is never going to happen.."
"They pay us in good hard currency anyway, and to hear you talk sometimes that's what you get - a million."
"Ach, we all get the same. I'd like a chance to spend it sometime instead of being here, living like a ground hog.
"A worm more likely."
"Anyway, the Americans are too stupid to catch me. They can't detect viruses on a hard drive, let alone His computer gave a warning beep and the seal dissolved, leaving a message flashing on the screen - UNAUTHORISED ENTRY DETECTED."
"You were saying?" Natalya laughed.
Boris cursed and quickly typed in a command to load a programme of his own. The programme flashed a reminder on his screen - TO SEND SPIKE PRESS ENTER.
He hit the Enter key and the prompt changed to SPIKE SENT.
"Good. Spiked them."
Natalya shook her head. "Boris, just hang up."
"No way." He turned and looked her straight in the eyes.
"I spiked them, you stupid goose. That programme of mine seizes the phone line of anyone trying to trace me. It jams their modem. They can't hang up." He typed another command which brought up another message: INITIATE SEARCH - ENTER PASSWORD.
"Now what?" from Natalya.
"I enter the password." He typed ten keys. On the screen the letters were not visible, coming up as a line of black circles.
"Bullets,' he explained.
"I know what bullets are, Boris." As he tapped Enter again so a map of the world came up on the screen and a red line began to trace the telephone line, the names of places ribboning out as it passed through major junctions or satellites. From Severnaya it tracked straight to St. Petersburg, across Europe to angle off over the Atlantic to the United States where it crawled quickly to Atlanta, and stopped, leaving a winking red light over the city.
His screen went blank for a second and was suddenly replaced by the words: FBI HEADQUARTERS, COMPUTER FRAUD DIVISION.
Boris said something obscene and impossible, then banged sharply on his Enter key to clear the screen. "I need a cigarette,' he snapped moodily and sounding sullen.
"Well, I need coffee." Natalya glanced at her screen to make sure all was in order and walked towards one of the doors that led to a kitchen.
Boris Ivanovich Grishenko swaggered away from his terminal, as if he were walking off the job, heading for one of the utility doors. He went up the steep angle of stone steps that led to the outside world, grinned at a security camera, pushed open the door and stepped into the cold, bleak landscape.
As he did so, a voice echoed from a concealed speaker -"CoMr.ade Grishenko, you are using an emergency exit.
You have been told before, this is illegal. Get back to the technical area as quickly as possible."
"Come up and stop me." Boris was obviously always doing this kind of thing, and had little tolerance for authority, knowing he was probably the most essential computer technician they had.
He pulled out a packet of Marlboro cigarettes. He had bought a huge amount on his last leave, paying with the hard currency the technicians earned. Putting a cigarette between his lips, he flicked at the wheel of his lighter. The flame spluttered for a second and was blown out, as if by some sudden strong wind.
Grishenko raised his eyes. The dark shape of a helicopter was descending onto the landing pad some fifty yards away, its rotors stirring the powdered snow into a white tornado.
The Tigre has landed, Xenia Onatopp thought grimly.
She popped the sleek canopy and undid her safety harness, reaching down to sling an Israeli-made Uzi onto her right shoulder. She already had spare magazines in pouches on her belt.
"Ready, General?" She spoke into her headset, hearing the general's snarl of response -"Let's get on with it. I've been ready for some time now. They were both in uniform, Xenia with the insignia of a colonel, her partner with that of a general. Bond would have recognised the general immediately, for the last time he had seen him General Ourumov had a gun to the head of his old friend Alec Trevelyan.
Boris Grishenko did a swift disappearing act as soon as he spotted the two officers.
Now, Ourumov kept step with Xenia as they marched purposefully along the side of the ruined building, where ice and snow had been cleared from a path which led to the main door, down wide concrete steps, along a corridor to a security door. A guard sprang to attention and saluted, though General Ourumov seemed to hardly notice the man. He knew exactly what he was doing, looking straight into a camera placed almost at eye level and clearly speaking his name "General Arkady Grigorovich Ourumov. Head of Space Division." There were a series of fast bleeps as the system went through its voice recognition routine, then the steel security door opened and the pair were through into the most sensitive area where the Duty Officer snapped to attention, his second-in-command hastily rising and buttoning his jacket.
"General, if I'd known you were coming..
Xenia muttered, "You'd have baked a cake, yes. "You'd have been ready for me, I think, Major. This is an unscheduled test of the Severnaya facility. A war simulation. We shall be test firing GoldenEye. Report status." He looked up and could see that the computer scientists and technicians behind the thick tinted glass were moving, craning from their work-stations to see what was going on. "Jump, man. Report status,' Ourumov barked at the major.
"Status normal, sir. Two operational satellites: Petya and Mischa, both in ninety-minute earth orbit at one hundred kilometres."
"Good. Here's the authorisation code. Hand me the GoldenEye, today's access numbers and the key, please. I am timing you as from now." He had already thrown a plastic card down on the small counter, now he ostentatiously brought his left arm up and studied his watch.
The major almost fell over himself trying to get things done correctly, punching in the numbers to unlock the metal gate in front of the safe, using the palm print pad to ID himself, them tapping in the safe's code of the day.
The lock beeped different tones - like a digital telephone, then clicked open.
Xenia gestured to the other officer and said that he should open the safety door through to the technical area.
"On a wartime basis, Captain, this entire facility must be open in case there is need to evacuate with little warning." The captain did not argue.
"Today's codes, sir. The electronic firing key and GoldenEye." The Duty Officer brought the items from the safe: the key, a plastic card, and a small golden disk in the centre of which was an engraved eye.
"Good. Now, make the blind see." The major looked down at the disk and removed a piece of golden tape from the centre of the eye, revealing a circle where the pupil would have been.
"You know how the GoldenEye works?"
"Yes, General. When positioned correctly the disk allows a laser beam to lance through its centre, thus initiating the firing mechanism of the satellite."
"Good.
You have done well, Major. I think that will be all we require." He turned to Xenia. "Colonel. You take over.
Xenia almost lazily unslung her Uzi and put two quick bursts in the direction of the two officers. Then she walked unhurriedly to the door leading to the technicians' area and sprayed everything in sight, changing magazines with an almost robot-like perfection.
Bodies were thrown back against equipment or spun violently, showers of sparks and smoke leaped from computer work-stations. The entire business took less than thirty seconds.
In the small kitchen, Natalya Simonova spilled her coffee and looked up, horror in her eyes.
&n
bsp; Back in the main control room Xenia bent down and removed a second firing key hanging on a silver chain from around the dead Duty Officer's neck and went over to the long console at which Ourumov had already taken his place, throwing switches and watching the long screen light up high above the instruments.
With great precision Ourumov slid the GoldenEye disk into a slot, not unlike a CD player. He placed the day's code card in front of him and inserted the key into a lock to the right of the point where the golden disk had slid into place. Xenia had already inserted the key taken from the Duty Officer. "On my count,' he rapped. "Three, Two, One, Zero.' They turned their keys in unison and the rest of the console lit up, needles flicked and the screen above them showed a segment of the earth with one of the satellites in orbit.
"Set target acquisition for Petya. Severnaya,' the general ordered.
High above the earth's surface, a piece of what appeared to be space junk - possibly the burned out stage of a rocket - seemed to be tumbling around in orbit, but, as the command from Severnaya leaped silently through space to wake it up, so the satellite coded Petya emitted blasts from hidden propulsion units and began to change course.
Inside the control room, both Ourumov and Xenia looked at the screen above them and saw what Natalya had been watching, less than half-an-hour before. The red symbol that was the Petya began to move rapidly, shifting from its position over the Middle East and heading at an unthinkable speed towards northern Russia.
On a lower display screen information started to ribbon out: PETYA LOCATION: 80.31.160.17 TARGET: 78.08.107.58.