About the Author

Steve Cole is a best-selling children’s author whose sales exceed three million copies. His hugely successful Astrosaurs young fiction series has been a UK top-ten children’s bestseller and been published widely internationally. His several original Doctor Who novels have also been bestsellers. An original comedy, fantasy and adventure writer, Steve’s work includes a broad range of books, most recently the Secret Agent Mummy series for younger readers, Stop Those Monsters! and the explosive Young Bond titles Shoot to Kill and Heads You Die, with a further adventure for the teenage James Bond planned for publication later this year.

Much in demand for his energetic performances at events, Steve has appeared at Edinburgh, Hay, Cheltenham, Oxford, Bath, YALC and World Book Day’s Biggest Book Show on Earth. He has toured schools in Europe, America, the UAE, Australia and New Zealand, and featured at sci-fi and Doctor Who conventions from London to Los Angeles.

About the Book

A flash of lightning illuminates a horrific sight. What his school claims was a tragic accident James Bond suspects was murder.

In search of the truth – and revenge – Bond risks his life to learn of a new secret weapon that could change the course of history. The trail leads across Europe to a ruthless warmonger who stands ready to unleash hell upon the world.

To survive, James must brave traps, trials and terrifying experiments – and triumph over his most powerful opponent yet.

RHCP DIGITAL

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RHCP Digital is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

www.penguin.co.uk

www.puffin.co.uk

www.ladybird.co.uk

First published RHCP, 2016

This ebook published 2016

Text copyright © Ian Fleming Publications Limited, 2016

Cover artwork copyright © blacksheep-uk.com, 2016

Train image copyright © Getty Images/ryasick, 2016

Girl and boy images copyright © Shutterstock, 2016

The moral right of the author has been asserted

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978–1–448–19375–2

All correspondence to:

RHCP Digital

Penguin Random House Children’s

80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL

Acknowledgements

I am extremely grateful for the enthusiasm and generosity of Gemma Gray and Craig Marshall at Fettes College, Edinburgh, who have helped me so much in researching the school as James would have found it.

I would also like to thank several Old Fettesians for sharing their personal recollections of the school in the 1930s: Mr Iain MacLaren, Dr Hugh MacPhail, Sir Robert Sanders, Professor Ian Stewart, Mr Ian Hall and Mr Neil Irvine.

Gratitude too to Rachel Griffiths-Johnson for supplying judo expertise and Evelien Pieterse at Het Spoorwegmuseum in Utrecht for assistance with period Dutch rail detail.

For their work on helping to shape this novel, special thanks to Sophie Wilson, Ruth Knowles, Corinne Turner, Jo Lane, Mainga Bhima and Philippa Milnes-Smith.

Blood in the Water

The boy crept up to the fence and looked around. There was the familiar sign . . .

And hanging next to it, just to make sure that the message was clearly understood, were the bodies of several dead animals. Strung up like criminals, wire twisted round their broken necks.

He knew them so well; they were almost like old friends. There were rabbits with their eyes pecked out, tattered black crows with broken wings, a couple of foxes, a few rats, even a wildcat and a pine marten. In all the days he’d been coming here the boy had watched them slowly rotting away, until some of them were little more than flaps of dirty leather and yellow bones. But there were a couple of fresh ones since yesterday, a squirrel and another fox.

Which meant that someone had been back.

In his thick brown poacher’s jacket and heavy green cotton trousers the boy was fairly well camouflaged, but he knew that he had to be on his guard. The signs and the fifteen-foot-high fence entwined with rusted barbed wire were enough to keep most people away, but there were the men as well. The estate workers. A couple of times he’d spotted a pair of them walking the perimeter, shotguns cradled in their elbows, and although it was a few days since he’d seen anyone up here, he knew that they were never far away.

At the moment, however, apart from the sad corpses of the animals, he was alone.

The afternoon light was fading into evening, taking all the detail from the land with it. Here, on this side of the fence, among the thick gorse and juniper and low rowan trees, he was well hidden, but soon . . . soon he was going under the wire, and on the other side the tree cover quickly fell away. He could just see the scrubby grassland, dotted with small rocks, which sloped down towards the peaty brown waters of the loch.

Soon he’d be fishing those waters for the first time.

The trek up here had taken nearly an hour. School had finished at four o’clock and he’d had nothing to eat since lunchtime. He knew that once he was inside the fence there would be no time to eat, so he slipped his knapsack from his shoulders and took out his ham sandwiches and a crisp apple. He ate them quickly, gazing up at the mountain that stood watch over the loch. It looked cold and barren and unfeeling. It had stood here for millions of years, and would stand for millions more. The boy felt small and alone, and when the wind vibrated the wires in the fence, making them moan, he shivered.

Before the new laird had come there had been no fence. The land had been open for miles around. The loch had been a good fishing spot then, and the old laird hadn’t been bothered by those few hardy folk who braved the long haul up from the village. What did he care if one or two of his trout went missing each year? There were always plenty more.

But that had all changed when the new fellow had taken over, five years ago. Everything had changed. The land was fenced off. The locals were kept away.

But not this evening.

The boy chucked his crusts and apple core into the bushes, then crawled over to the fence and pulled away the pieces of turf that covered the hole he’d dug.

The turfs rested on a grid of strong sticks, which he quickly removed. The ground up here was rock hard and full of stones, so it had taken the boy several days to hack this narrow tunnel under the fence, scrabbling in the dirt with his mother’s gardening tools. Last night he’d finally finished the work, but it had been too late to do anything more so he’d reluctantly gone home.

Today he’d been too excited to concentrate at school, all he could think about was coming up here, ducking through the hole, going down to the loch and taking some fish from under the new laird’s nose.

He smiled as he made his way into the hole and pushed aside the old piece of sacking that he’d used to cover the entrance at the other end. His tackle bag and knapsack he easily pulled through the tunnel behind him, but his father’s rod, even when broken down into three sections, was too long to fit through, so he went back, took it out of its case and slotted the pieces one by one through the fence.

Five minutes later, his rod in one hand, his tackle bag in the other, he was darting between the rocks down towards the water.

Before he’d died, his father had described Loch Silverfin to him many times. He’d often come up here as a lad to fish, and it was his stories that had inspired the boy. His father had loved fishing, but he had been wounded by a shell blast in the Great War of 1914 and the pieces of shrapnel buried in his flesh had slowly ruined his health, so that by the end he could barely walk, let alone hold a fishing rod.

The boy was excited; he was the man of the house now. He pictured the look on his mother’s face when he brought home a fine fresh trout, but there was more to it than that. Fishing is a challenge – and this was the biggest challenge of all.

Loch Silverfin was shaped like a huge fish, long and narrow and fanning out into a rough tail at this end. It was named after a giant salmon from Scottish folklore – It’Airgid, which in Gaelic meant Silverfin. Silverfin was a fearsome salmon who was bigger and stronger than all the other salmon in Scotland. The giant Cachruadh had tried to catch him, and after an epic battle lasting twenty days the fish had at last swallowed the giant, and kept him in his belly for a year before spitting him out in Ireland.

Legend had it that Silverfin still lived in the loch, deep in its dark waters. The boy didn’t quite believe that, but he did believe that there were some mighty fish here.

The loch looked wilder than he’d imagined it; steep, sheer rocks bordered most of the shore beneath the mountain, and a few stunted rushes were all that grew. Way down at the other end, partially shrouded in the mist rising off the water, he could just make out the square grey shape of the castle, sitting on the little island that formed the eye of the fish. But it was too far away, and the light was too bad, for anyone to see him from there.

He scouted along the shingle for a good place to cast, but it wasn’t very encouraging. The shoreline was too exposed. If any of the estate workers came anywhere near, they’d be bound to spot him.

The thought of the estate workers made him glance around uneasily and he realized how scared he was. They weren’t local men and they didn’t mix with the folk in the village. They lived up here in a group of low, ugly, concrete sheds the laird had built near the gatehouse. He’d turned his castle into a fortress and these men were his private army. The boy had no desire to bump into any of them this evening.

He was just thinking that he might have to chuck it in and go home when he saw the perfect spot. At the tip of the fish’s tail there was a fold in the edge of the loch where a stream entered. The water here was almost completely hidden from view by the high cliffs all round. He knew that the trout would wait here for food to wash down the stream.

Twenty feet or so out in the lake there stood a single, huge granite rock. If he could get there and shelter behind it, he could easily cast towards the stream without being seen by either man or fish.

He sat in the grass to pull his waterproof waders on. It had been a real slog, lugging them up here, but he needed them now. They slipped over his clothes like a huge pair of trousers attached to a pair of boots, coming right up to his chest, where they were supported by shoulder straps. They smelt of damp and old rubber.

He fastened his reel to his cane rod and quickly threaded the line through the loops. He’d already tied on his fly line, so he took out his favourite fly, a silver doctor, and knotted it to the end.

He skirted round the water’s edge until he was level with the big rock, and then waded out into the water towards it. It took him a few minutes to pick his way across, feeling with his feet for safe places to step. The bottom of the loch was slippery and uneven and at one point he had to make a long detour round a particularly deep area, but once he neared the rock it became shallower again and he grew more confident.

He found a good solid place to stand and from here he had a clear cast over towards the stream. He checked his fly, played out his line, then, with a quick backwards jerk of his arm, he whipped it up into a big loop behind him, before flicking it forward, where it snaked out across the water and landed expertly at the edge of the loch.

That part had gone very well, but it turned out to be the only part that did. He didn’t get a single touch. Try as he might, he couldn’t attract any fish on to his hook. He cast and recast, he changed his fly, he tried nearer and further – nothing.

It was getting darker by the minute and he would have to head for home soon, so, in desperation, he decided to try a worm. He’d brought a box of them with him just in case. He dug it out of his pocket, chose a nice fat lobworm and speared it on a hook, where it wriggled enticingly. What fish could resist that?

He had to be more careful casting the worm and he flicked it gently, underarm, away from him. Then he got his first bite so quickly it took him completely by surprise; the worm had scarcely landed in the water before he felt a strong tug. He tugged back to get a good hold in the fish’s mouth, then prepared for a fight.

Whatever it was on the end of his line, it was tough. It pulled this way and that, furiously, and he watched his rod bow and dip towards the water. He let the fish run for a few moments to tire it, then slowly reeled it in. Still it zigzagged about in the water in a frantic attempt to get free. The boy grinned from ear to ear – it was a big one and wasn’t going to give up easily.

Maybe he’d caught the awesome Silverfin himself!

For some time he played it, gradually reeling in as much line as he dared, praying that the hook wouldn’t slip or the line snap . . . This was a very delicate business, he had to feel the fish, had to try and predict its wild movements. Then, at last, he had it near, he could see something moving in the water on the end of his line; he took a deep breath, hauled it up and his heart sank . . .

It wasn’t Silverfin, it was an eel, and, even as he realized it, something brushed against his legs, nearly knocking him off balance. He looked down and saw a second eel darting away through the water.

Well, there was nothing else to do: he had to land the thing to retrieve his hook and line. He hoisted it out of the water and tried to grab hold of it, but it was thrashing about in the air, twisting itself into knots, snarling itself round the line, and, as he reached for it, it tangled round his arm. It was a monstrous thing; it must have been at least two feet long, streaked with slime, cold and sleek and brownish grey.

He hated eels.

He tried to pull it off his arm, but it was tremendously powerful and single-minded, like one big, writhing muscle, and it simply twisted itself round his other arm. He swore and shook it, nearly losing his footing. He told himself to keep calm and he carefully moved closer to the rock, which he managed to slap the eel against and pin it down. Still it squirmed and writhed like a mad thing, even though its face showed nothing. It was a cold, dead mask, flattened and wide, with small, dark eyes.

Finally he was able to hold its head still enough to get a grip on the deeply embedded hook, and he began to twist and wrench it free. It was hard work. He’d used a big hook and the end of it was barbed to stop it from slipping out once it had stuck into a fish’s mouth.

‘Come on,’ he muttered, grunting with the effort, and then – he wasn’t sure how it happened, it went too fast – all at the same time, the hook came loose, the eel gave a frantic jerk and, the next thing he knew, the hook was in his thumb.

The pain was awful, like a freezing bolt shooting all the way up his arm. He gasped and clamped his teeth together and managed not to shout – it was a still evening and any sound up here would travel for miles, bouncing off the high rocks and water.

The eel slithered away and plopped back into the water. A wave of sickness passed over the boy and he swayed, nearly fainting. For a long while he couldn’t bring himself to look at his hand, but at last he forced his eyes down. The hook had gone in by his palm and right through the fleshy base of his thumb, where it stuck out on the other side. There was a horrible gash and flap of skin where the barb had broken through on its way out. Blood was already oozing from the wound and dripping into the icy water.

He was lucky that the point had come out and not stayed sunk deep inside his flesh, but he knew that he couldn’t just pull the hook free; it had the curved barb on one end and a ring on the other where the line was attached.

There was only one thing to do.

He rested his rod against the rock and with his other hand he reached into his tackle bag and got out his cutters.

He took a deep breath, clamped the cutters on the end of the hook where the line was knotted, pressed them together and – SNAK – the end broke off. Then, quickly, so that he didn’t have time to think about it, he pulled the hook out by the barb. A fresh pain hit him and he leant against the rock to stop his knees from giving way.

He knew he wouldn’t do any more fishing today. He started to cry. All that effort for this: a lousy eel and a wounded thumb. It just wasn’t fair. Then he pulled himself together. He had to do something about his situation. Blood was flowing freely from the wound. He washed his hand in the loch, the blood turning black and oily in the cold water, then he took a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and wrapped it tightly round his thumb. He was shaking badly now and felt very light-headed. As carefully as he could, he secured all his gear and set off back to the shore, wading through the dark slick in the water that his blood had made.

And then he felt it.

A jolt against his legs.

And then another.

More eels. But what were they doing? Eels never attacked people. They ate scraps and frogs and small fish . . .

He pressed on; maybe he’d imagined it.

No. There it came again. A definite bump.

He peered down into the water and in the dim light he saw them . . . hundreds of them, a seething mass in the water, balled up and tangled together like the writhing hair of some underwater Medusa. Eels. All round him. Eels of all sizes, from tiny black slivers to huge brutes twice the length of the one he’d caught. The water was alive with them, wriggling, twisting, turning over and over . . . They surged against his legs and he stumbled. His wounded hand splashed down into the water and he felt hungry mouths tug the bloodied handkerchief from his hand and drag it away into the murky depths.

He panicked, tried to run for the shore, but slipped and, as his feet scrabbled to get a hold, he stumbled into the deep part of the loch. For a moment his head went under and he was aware of eels brushing against his face. One wrapped itself round his neck and he pulled it away with his good hand. Then his feet touched the bottom and he pushed himself up to the surface. He gulped in a mouthful of air, but his waders were filled with water now . . . water and eels, he could feel them down his legs, trapped by the rubber.

He knew that if he could get his feet up he might float, but in his terror and panic his body wasn’t doing what he wanted it to do.

‘Help,’ he screamed, ‘help me!’ Then he was under again, and this time the water seemed even thicker with eels. The head of one probed his mouth and clamped its jaws on to his lip. He tore it away, and his anger gave him fresh strength. He forced his feet downwards, found a solid piece of ground, and then he was up out of the water again. All about him the surface of the lake was seething with frenzied eels.

‘Help, help . . . Please, somebody, help me . . .’ His mouth hurt and blood was dripping from where the eel had bitten his lip. He thrashed at the water, but nothing would scare the beasts away.

And then out of the corner of his eye he saw someone . . . a man running along the far shore. He waved crazily and yelled for help again. He didn’t care any more if it was an estate worker . . . anything was better than being trapped here with these terrible fish.

The man ran closer and dived into the loch.

No, the boy wanted to shout. Not in the water. Not in with the eels. But then he saw a head bob to the surface. It was all right. He was going to be rescued.

The man swam towards him with strong, crude strokes. Thank God. Thank God. He was going to be saved. For a while he almost forgot about the eels and just concentrated on the man’s steady progress towards him, but then a fresh surge knocked him off balance and he was once more in the snaking embrace of a hundred frenzied coils of cold flesh.

No. No, he would not let them beat him. He whirled his arms, kicked his legs and he was out again, gasping and spluttering for breath.

But where was the man? He had disappeared.

The boy looked round desperately. Had the eels got him?

It was quiet; the movement in the water seemed to have stopped, almost as if none of this had ever happened . . .

And then he saw him, under the water, a big, dark shape among the fish, and suddenly, with a great splash, he rose out of the loch and the boy screamed.

The last thing he saw before he sank back into the black depths of the water was the man’s face; only it wasn’t a man’s face . . . It was an eel’s face, a nightmare face; chinless, with smooth, grey, utterly hairless skin pulled tight across it, and fat, blubbery lips that stretched almost all the way back to where the ears should be. The front of the face was deformed, pushed forward, so that the nose was hideously flattened, with splayed nostrils, and the bulging eyes were forced so wide apart that they didn’t look in any way human.

The ghastly thick lips parted and a wet belching hiss erupted.

Then the waters closed over the boy and he knew nothing more.

Prologue

The Dead Land

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER game of war. Duncan squeezed through the tiny gap in the fence and pushed past the DANGER sign. The other boys would never expect him to go into the Dead Land, but then, that was the secret of victory: take bold actions to surprise your enemy.

‘Duncan, you’re the German sniper and we’re the British soldiers hunting you down.’ As ever, the older kids made him the enemy, the target. That was the only reason they let him bunk off school with them. ‘You get a ten-minute start, then we’re coming after you to blow you to bits.’ And when they found him, they would really let him have it with the stones they threw for ‘bullets’ – by the handful for machine guns, or one at a time for carefully aimed revolvers. Either way, it hurt like hell.

Not this time, thought Duncan. This time he would sneak up behind them and throw his stones first, ‘shoot’ them in the back and win some respect for once; not just for his victory, but for braving the Dead Land, and at only thirteen years of age!

The place was full of stories: strange lights in the sky overhead . . . fields full of dead animals . . . a rotting stink that carried clear across the Highlands . . . ghost soldiers marching through the woods at night . . .

Duncan moved as silently as he could through the wild landscape. Rocks of every shape and size peeped through the shrubs and trees, and the towering Binean, the ‘Mountain of Birds’, reared its lofty head above everything. He could hear no birdsong now, despite the fair summer weather. Once, this land had been part of a general’s estate and well-tended, but that general had never returned from the Great War. No gamekeepers watched the woods now, of that Duncan was certain – there were no pheasants or partridge, no vermin boards, no snares for stoats or weasels. Fifty yards in from the fence, the weeping birches with their pendulous branches and waving ringlets had given way to bare mud and the sharp charcoal scratch of skeletal trees.

It seemed that the Dead Land was so named with good reason.

Duncan felt spooked in the unnatural stillness. It was as if the soil had been poisoned and the landscape with it; birds and animals stayed away, as if they sensed that this place meant danger.

Maybe once, Duncan told himself. There’s nothing here now.

He soon realized that cutting through the fringes of the Dead Land was impossible; the wood was too dense. The branches and brambles grabbed at his limbs, scoring them with scratches. He could either turn back, or he could go deeper into this unknown territory before trying to cut round behind his schoolmates.

Duncan pictured possible triumph – his stones bouncing off the backs of the boys’ heads; new respect on their faces. He pushed on for several minutes, his progress marked by the snap of brittle branches.

But when he stopped, sore and sweating, the sounds of struggle continued behind him.

Chilled to the bone, Duncan heard the crash of trampled undergrowth. It sounded like a small army advancing quickly through the dead wood. And beneath it, a noise that sounded out of place in the still forest: a hissing, whirring, bubbling noise that Duncan couldn’t place.

‘The ghost soldiers . . .’ he breathed.

Terrified now, Duncan hurled himself forward, branches striking and snapping against his body. Stealth was unnecessary – whatever pursued him was making an unholy racket. And now, to Duncan’s ears, it sounded not like a group of soldiers, but like one enormous mechanical giant, moving at a relentless clockwork pace.

Duncan charged into a fence, climbed it automatically. The rusted barbed wire at the top snagged on his clothing as he tipped over onto the other side. Teeth gritted, he scrambled up and ran on through a field of long grass, the stalks blackened and browned, poisoned with a chemical tang. The stories are true, he realized, tears stinging his eyes, bloody hands clasped together in fervent prayer. Everything’s dead here. Please, let me get out. Please.

He dropped down onto the bed of dry grass, and listened. The unearthly crashing of the thing in the woods was fainter now. It was moving away, and in the quiet of its passing Duncan could hear the distant babble of a stream. He heaved a sigh of relief, but as he did so, he realized just how much he was hurting. The barbed wire had cut him badly, and his shirt was soaked with blood.

Gritting his teeth, Duncan got up and stumbled on towards the sound of the stream. How deep inside the Dead Land was he now? You’ll find a way back, he told himself as a brook came curling into sight. Water first. Drink. Bathe these cuts. Water.

But the water here ran dark and smelled foul, its surface oily. Duncan didn’t dare touch the stuff, let alone taste it.

He jumped across to the far bank and waded through the desiccated brush towards what looked like the mouth of a ravine. I have to get out of here. Huge blocks of stone blocked his way; debris from a rock fall, most likely. Perhaps if he climbed up one, he would be able to spy the best path out of here.

Before he could even try, he heard a thud of compressed air, the sizzling rush of a projectile. Then Duncan was hurled to the ground in a storm of rock and dust. He curled up, eyes closed, his breath coming in rapid gasps, as stone chips rained down.

A strong, commanding voice, thickened by a lisp, emerged from the explosion’s last echoes. ‘The BR-12 mortar fires a special high-explosive projectile, Generalleutnant.’ It was coming from the other side of the rocks. ‘You see, the shell uses a tiny rocket motor to “bounce” off the ground of the target area. Fragmentation thus occurs in mid-air, causing far greater damage . . .’

As the dust cleared, Duncan made out a group of figures standing in the ravine. A tall, suited, weatherbeaten man was surveying the damage to the boulder, while waiting beside him . . .

Duncan shivered as he took in the hunched apparition, still speaking about the mortar like a proud parent. Despite the warmth of the day, the man wore a heavy black cloak. A hood hid his features, and he gripped a cane with a gloved hand. Two large men hovered behind as if ready to catch him should he fall.

‘It is a most satisfactory weapon, Mr Blade. If a little conventional.’ The suited man spoke stilted English; he must be the Generalleutnant, a German officer, Duncan thought. What was he doing here in the middle of the Scottish countryside? ‘The minimum order, now – remind me . . .?’

‘Shall we say thirty thousand?’

Duncan closed his eyes . . . 30,000 mortars? These were not ghosts of war. These men were preparing for one, by the sound of it; here, in the heart of the Dead Land.

‘First, tell me . . .’ the German replied. ‘This clever projectile of yours – it is enough to destroy the Steel Shadow?’

‘It would barely scratch it.’ The hunched man wheezed with laughter. ‘We are committed to pushing the Steel Shadow technology to its limits. When my operator returns from the speed trial, Generalleutnant, you may fire the mortar point blank and see how it fares for yourself.’

Still crouching on the stony ground, Duncan looked round suddenly. Was that his imagination, or . . .?

No. That was the same crashing noise, all right; he heard the heavy splash as whatever it was strode across the dark brook, the rumble and wheeze of strange engines. The thing he’d heard before was on its way here, ready to be tested further.

Panicking, Duncan broke cover and ran as fast as his aching legs could manage.

‘Schiessen Sie den Eindringling!’

Gunfire followed the officer’s bellow, and bullets whined and ricocheted all around. They’re going to kill me! Duncan raced to his left, away from the ravine. He had to find a way to circle back round to the fence, to get clear, to find the others. They’d never believe what had happened here. There really was a German sniper, and he had a mortar, and there was a—

Skidding to a stop, Duncan realized that the hissing, bubbling thing was somewhere to his right, approaching through a swathe of forest. He glimpsed metal gleaming through dead branches.

Faster. Go faster. Duncan swiped at the dense undergrowth ahead of him with bloodied hands, forcing his way through the wild tangle on a haphazard course. Finally, lungs burning, he emerged into an open field. Hope flared: further woodland fringed the far side, offering good cover, and he ran for it, barely registering a toppled signpost close by. If he could only hide out in the undergrowth and evade whatever was coming after—

The blast engulfed him in a roar of fire and heat, hurling him into the air. Duncan landed on his back, shocked and blood-soaked, eyes drawn to the faded letters on the sign: KEEP OUT! MINEFIELD.

For a moment his biggest fear was that the noise of the explosion would lead his pursuers straight to him. Duncan made to get up, but nothing happened. He stared uncomprehending at the rubble of flesh about him. Shock and adrenalin must be sparing him the pain.

But nothing could save him from the lumbering, hissing thing fast approaching through the smoke. Its bulky shadow fell over him, and finally an agonized scream tore from Duncan’s throat.

The ghostly echoes rang out across the ravine.

‘Was ist los?’ The German Generalleutnant looked troubled. ‘Blade, that intruder . . .’

‘Damned local children.’ Hunched and muttering, Blade pulled back his hood to reveal hawkish features in a warped, deformed face. ‘They hear the stories of our testing ground and make dares to come here. Little fools.’

‘A most regrettable incident. What will you do?’

‘Regrettable, yes, but we can’t allow it to hinder our work. We must dispose of the body where it won’t be found . . .’ Blade snorted. ‘And then build a higher fence.’

1

Whatever Life
Throws at You

JAMES BOND HURTLED through the air, caught a glimpse of the high beamed ceiling – and then his back hit the wooden floor with a crash that echoed around the gymnasium. He’d barely managed to utter a groan before his opponent pounced on his chest, a knee digging in either side of his torso, hands reaching for his collar.

If he gets me in a neck lock now, James thought, I’m finished. He brought up both arms inside his attacker’s to break the grip on his collar and bucked his hips, twisting to his right. With no arms to anchor him, his opponent fell to the floor, but quickly rolled over and jumped back onto his feet. James rose with him, threw a punch, landed a glancing blow to his jaw.

‘Barely felt that.’ His panting opponent grinned, cheeks as fiery as his thick, curly hair. ‘Losing your touch, Bond?’

‘You’ll be finding it, Stephenson.’ Hoping to unnerve him, James stepped in as if to execute a move, but Marcus Stephenson dodged out of reach and then feinted forward. The boys were locked together in frantic struggle for a grip.

One hand on his opponent’s lapel, the other grasping his elbow, James pulled Marcus towards him, lifting at the same time to put him off balance. But Marcus landed a punch of his own to James’s chin, and sent him reeling back. At the same time he launched a counter-attack, the Uchi mata, using his leg as a lever to whip James round over his hip.

In the split-second before he crashed to the ground, James knew that the fall would be a bad one. His head hit the floor and he gasped as he saw sparks. Gingerly he reached up to his thick black hair, prodded his skull. Intact, it seemed! Well, then, get up. To give in was not an option.

Giving in was never an option.

‘Had enough yet?’ Marcus enquired.

Slowly James rolled onto his side; dust motes milled about him in the rays of winter sun that lanced through the tall windows. He pushed his palms against the floor, willing the pain away. The fight, he knew, could only be won through focus and concentration.

Marcus waited for him to get up. Then the contest began again. James found himself stepping forward, back, feinting now to the right, now to the left. His fingers found fleeting purchase on Marcus’s jacket, but then dizziness overwhelmed him and he lost his grip.

Then a hand reached for his sleeve. Shaking off the fog caused by the fall, James suddenly had an inkling of the sequence of events to come. Marcus’s foot flicked to one side, ready to hook around James’s and topple him once more. James waited until the last second, and suddenly twisted through 180 degrees, reaching for Marcus’s left bicep and wrist. His fingers closed on sinew; then, ducking forward, he tipped the whole weight of his opponent over his back like a seesaw. With a shout, Marcus tumbled through the air and crashed down flat on his back.

My turn, James thought. He sat astride his opponent, crossing his arms at the elbows and holding his jacket by the collar, then squeezing his forearms inwards, putting pressure on either side of Marcus’s neck. Marcus writhed away from him, groaned and strained . . .

Finally he tapped twice on the floor.

James let go and jumped up, panting for breath, elated. ‘How was that?’

‘You swine!’ Marcus grinned up at him and offered his hand to shake. ‘I hadn’t expected you to try Kata Juji-jime.’

‘Always happy to try it. Just don’t ask me to spell it.’ James clasped his hand and helped him up. ‘You’re not hurt?’

‘M-m-merely his pride!’ Perched on a heap of crashmats at the side of the Fettes gymnasium, Perry Mandeville clapped. ‘Considering the two of you are friends, that was a fierce contest. At least, it looked that way to the layman.’ He reclined as if to emphasize his status.

‘The layabout, you mean.’ James pushed his hand through his sweat-soaked hair, but a stubborn comma of black fell back down across his forehead. ‘We didn’t invite you along just to observe, Mandeville. If we’re to get a proper judo club up and running, we’ll need recruits.’

‘And to order up more gi for our members.’ Marcus, a gangly boy of seventeen, pulled at James’s old, torn judo jacket with a wicked grin; it was one of his he’d now outgrown. ‘Victory was yours, but it was hardly stylish!’

‘I’ll sweet-talk Matron into running me up another,’ James said, ‘and let Perry have this gi when he joins us.’

‘I think not, old thing.’ Perry smiled. ‘I’m a thrill-seeker. I live for the risk of falling on m-my backside – not the certainty of it.’

‘Judo’s better exercise than herding sheep into your headmaster’s study,’ Marcus teased. ‘I still can’t believe you did that, Mandeville. That could only ever end baaa-dly.’

‘Ho ho ho. Bring up m-m-my criminal record, why don’t you. Haven’t I suffered enough – sent down from Eton and forced to dwell here among the likes of you?’ Perry jumped up and took up a fencing stance. ‘Had I m-my trusty foil, honour would be satisfied, I assure you.’

‘Oh, would it?’ Marcus raised an eyebrow. ‘You really must like to live dangerously.’

‘Is there any other way?’ Perry flashed a smile at James. ‘Just ask m-my good friend here. I taught him all he knows.’

James scoffed fondly at the claim. Perry really had been a good friend back at Eton; he was also a founder member of the school’s ‘Danger Society’, a clandestine refuge for pupils wishing to rebel against authority. James had taken up membership without hesitation. Although some of his adventures since had made sneaking out of dorms for an illicit cigarette seem tame, he now looked back with fondness at a more innocent time.

I sound like a veteran home from the Great War, James realized.

‘Now, listen, fellows, now that you’ve got your precious Japanese grapples over with . . .’ Perry lowered his voice, and beckoned James and Marcus closer. ‘I’m sure we’re all grateful to George and M-M-Marina for getting hitched on a Thursday, and it means we are duty-bound not to squander this precious free time . . .’

James smiled. Prince George, HRH the Duke of Kent, was to marry his second cousin, HRH Princess Marina of Greece, and by command of the King, every school in the land had been granted a holiday on 29 November. It was usually on Saturdays that the Head dispensed a shilling to each child in turn, so that on Sundays the tuck shop was besieged by a gigantic scrum of customers desperate for Bourbon and Café Noir biscuits. But in honour of the royal wedding he had coughed up the funds that morning, so that pupils could celebrate in the bustling city of Edinburgh – at approved destinations, at least.

‘So what’s it to be?’ asked James. ‘Do we really want to go to the Kings Cinema on Home Street and watch some wholesome motion picture as the masters wish?’

Perry smiled. ‘I say we sneak off to the Coliseum on West Fountainbridge and watch the new Tarzan feature.’

‘With Johnny Weissmuller as Tarzan? I still can’t quite believe I met him back in the summer.’

‘You never did, Bond!’ Marcus exclaimed. ‘How on earth . . .?’

‘There was a party in Los Angeles . . .’ James trailed off as a chill ran down his spine; better his time in Hollywood stayed swept under the carpet of his consciousness. ‘Really it was only a glimpse.’

‘So m-m-modest!’ Perry slapped him on the back. ‘Since you’re a close, personal friend of the star, James, you’ll want