Heads You Die

Novel — Locations — Equipment — Characters

Information
Title	Heads You Die
Author	Steve Cole
Publisher	Ian Fleming Publications
Preceded by	Shoot to Kill
Followed by	Strike Lightning

Heads You Die is the seventh book in the Young Bond series of spin-off James Bond novels and the second to be written by English novelist, Steve Cole. It was first published on 5th May 2016 by Red Fox, an imprint of Random House.

Plot

The story begins in a Scolopendra Industries laboratory as an arms dealer named Sarila Karatan steals a valuable strongbox and makes her escape by boat. Before she can get away she is mowed down by fire from an aircraft. Some time later, James Bond is chasing a pickpocket through the streets of Havana to recover a wallet belonging to family friend and research chemist, Gerald Hardiman. After their adventures in Los Angeles, he and Hugo are staying with the nervous chemist in Cuba. The reason for his unease is revealed after Bond prevents the abduction of a girl named Maritsa by two thugs - Ramón Mosqueda and El Puño. Hardiman had been attempting to smuggle her friend, Jagua Solares, the abused daughter of ruthless industrialist Scolopendra, out of the country. He is subsequently kidnapped and Bond, Hugo, Jagua and Maritsa search the city for him. While investigating Scolopendra's penthouse James encounters La Velada - a mysterious veiled woman whom Jagua believes is manipulating her father. He eavesdrops on her telephone conversation and discovers that Hardiman is still alive. She sees his reflection in the glass of a display case and opens fire on him.

James escapes the building on a motorbike procured by Jagua and the pair retrieve her old diving gear from a warehouse. The group head to the coastline where Sarila's boat sank and practice diving with the rudimentary equipment. The next day James and Hugo follow a lead to Ramón's suite at the Gran Casino. Instead of finding Hardiman they witness Scolopendra and La Velada interrogating his former chief enforcer, Chester MacLean. Believing him to be responsible for helping Sarila, Scolopendra flips his lucky coin to determine the man's fate - heads, he dies. The pair fight their way from the building, steal a car and return to the girls at Playa Caimito. James and Jagua dive toward the wreck and discover the strongbox. They are set upon by American divers and are forced to surface; discovering that Hugo and Maritsa are missing. Pursued by a boat they make for the shore and jump one of the divers as he emerges from the ocean. They take the box from him and escape by motorbike - only to end up dropping their treasure during a chase with the police. Bond watched from a distance as the officers opened the sealed box, revealing wads of hundred dollar bills inside.

He meets Jagua (and unexpectedly Hugo) at her home village of Sabana de Robles and together they realize that La Velada is a member of the Soviet intelligence apparat, the NKVD. Scolopendra, La Velada and El Puño arrive with the traitorous Maritsa and they take Jagua away. James and Hugo emerge from their hiding places and attempt to intercept them at the sea port of Batabano. They split up to evade the police, but Bond is arrested and taken to the local police station. There he sees La Velada recover the strongbox and discovers that the police officers are afflicted by some kind of horrific condition brought about by the money. He escapes in the chaos and encounters El Puño in the process of torching the evidence and kidnapping the incarcerated American diver, Franklin Ford. He narrowly escapes the building and meets up with Hugo at the harbour; where they are captured by Ramón and La Velada. They are taken to Scolopendra's shipyard, where they see a huge log raft under construction, and are flown to his estate. The pair are brought into his laboratory and are subjected to a botfly attack to extract a confession from Hardiman. It is revealed that the chemist has been supplying information to the U.S. foreign intelligence agency, the CIP. They had been investigating Scolopendra's operations since his poison trials murdered the sister of one of their operatives, Valentine Barbey. Sarila and the divers had all been CIP operatives.

Inside their cell Bond and Hugo notice a journal belonging to Barbey's sister, Lana, unwittingly detailing how Scolopendra's research staff were used as guinea pigs. Later that evening the boys, Hardiman and Jagua dine with Scolopendra and La Velada. They outline their scheme to introduce poisoned money into the economy of Great Britain - forcing them to become a vassal of the Soviet Union in exchange for a cure. As incentive for Hardiman to work quickly on the antidote they reveal that Bond and Hugo have been poisoned by Lana's journal. They are subsequently rescued from their cell by Jagua and make their way toward the laboratory building for the antidote. However, the building explodes - demolished to destroy all evidence of its manufacture. They are cornered by El Puño and La Velada. La Velada confesses that she has indeed been manipulating her father and plans to kill him once they reach England. She also reveals that, like Bond and Hugo, Maritsa had been poisoned by her brief contact with her bribe money and only has a week to live. As she aims to shoot Jagua the boys block her line-of-fire. El Puño goes to move them, but accidentally blocks her view and provides them with a chance to escape. They are separated in the chaos and James makes for the paper mill; discovering that it has also been scheduled for demolition and is full of high explosives. Following him, El Puño is knocked backward into one of the chemical vats and is decapitated.

The teenagers reunite and, realizing that it is being used to transport the poisoned currency to England, fly to the log raft in Scolopendra's seaplane. Their fuel tank is hit by weapons-fire from the flotilla and they land alongside. As James sneaks onboard the tugboat pulling the raft, Jagua persuades her father (with the secret help of Hugo) that the CIP are coming and La Velada, who tried to kill her, cannot be trusted. Scolopendra turns on Ramón, believing he has been divulging information to the CIP, grabbing him and accidentally igniting the leaking aviation fuel with a burst a machine-gun fire. The logs and the money catch fire and, as the inferno spreads, the tortured CIP diver escapes and opens fire on Scolopendra's men. In the chaos Hardiman leaps overboard with the antidotes and La Valeda makes her escape in the motor-yacht. Bond is confronted by Scolopendra in the listing tugboat's engine room, swatting aside Hugo and attempting to kill James with a makeshift club. Jagua appears in the doorway and distracts her father by threatening to poison herself; as they embrace, she sinks a knife into her father's back. He slaps her to the ground and as he prepares to deliver the coup de grâce with his club, James fires the ship's Lyle gun - it recoils and trips the villain, sending him plummeting into the hold, dead. The ship lurched, taking on water, and Hugo also falls into the hold. Bond narrowly saves the tangled boy from drowning by cutting him loose with the knife in Scolopendra's back. Jagua resuscitates him with CPR. The tugboat sinks and the teenagers are rescued by Ford and Hardiman. They travel to Scolopendra's estate and are given the antidote. The book ends as Jagua ponder her future - planning on making it worth something by helping the villagers of Sabana de Robles. Pondering his own destiny, James looks at the stars and asks himself, "Win or lose, life had to mean something. But what?"

Characters

James Bond

Scolopendra

La Velada

El Puño

Jagua Solares

Maritsa

Hugo Grande

Gerald Hardiman

Ramón Mosqueda

Chester MacLean

Gallery

Artist Kev Walker's depiction of Bond struggling with the CIP divers.

Trivia

• Searching Scolopendra's penthouse in Havana, James finds an anonymous typed manuscript entitled A Field Guide to Birds of the West Indies. It is a reference to the real-world book of the same name by James Bond, the ornithologist whose name inspired Ian Fleming. Interestingly, the book is also picked up by Bond in a scene set in Havana during 2002's Die Another Day.
• On his way to the Gran Casino, Bond reflects that "luck had no memory, he knew, and the comfort of past success was cold as a gun barrel." A paraphrase of Fleming's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, where James contemplates that "the cards have no memory."
• Foreshadowing the kind of man he will turn into, James muses, "To shoot a man dead in cold blood, at point-blank range . . . I could never do that."
• Like Franz Sanchez in the 1989 film Licence to Kill, loyalty is important to Scolopendra - he values it above all else. And he punishes disloyalty.
• Hugo's quip that Scolopendra's bath taps "most probably run hot and cold anacondas" was likely a nod to Live and Let Die (1973).
• CIP operative Valentine Barbey and his sister Lana are references to, and likely intended to be relatives of, the character Fidele Barbey in Fleming's short story, The Hildebrand Rarity (1960).
• One of Barbey's CIP operatives, Franklin Ford, is keel-hauled in a scene reminiscent of Fleming's Live and Let Die (1954). The scene was replicated on the silver screen in For Your Eyes Only (1981).

External links

• Official Young Bond website