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Bond was sold. At once he accepted all M.’s faith in the girl’s story, however crazy it might be. For a Russian to bring them this gift, and take the appalling risk of bringing it, could only mean an act of desperation – of desperate infatuation if you liked. Whether the girl’s story was true or not, the stakes were too high to turn down the gamble.
‘You see, 007?’ said M. softly. It was not difficult to read Bond’s mind from the excitement in his eyes. ‘You see what I mean?’
Bond hedged. ‘But did she say how she could do it?’
‘Not exactly. But Kerim says she was absolutely definite. Some business about night duty. Apparently she’s on duty alone certain nights of the week and sleeps on a camp bed in the office. She seemed to have no doubts about it, although she realized that she would be shot out of hand if anyone even dreamed of her plan. She was even worried about Kerim reporting all this back to me. Made him promise he would encode the signal himself and send it on a one-time-only pad and keep no copy. Naturally he did as she asked. Directly she mentioned the Spektor, Kerim knew he might be on to the most important coup that’s come our way since the war.’
‘What happened then, sir?’
‘The steamer was coming up to a place called Ortakoy. She said she was going to get off there. Kerim promised to get a signal off that night. She refused to make any arrangements for staying in touch. Just said that she would keep her end of the bargain if we would keep ours. She said good night and mixed in the crowd going down the gang-plank and that was the last Kerim saw of her.’
M. suddenly leant forward in his chair and looked hard at Bond. ‘But of course he couldn’t guarantee that we would make the bargain with her.’
Bond said nothing. He thought he could guess what was coming.
‘This girl will only do these things on one condition. ’ M.’s eyes narrowed until they were fierce, significant slits. ‘That you go out to Istanbul and bring her and the machine back to England.’
Bond shrugged his shoulders. That presented no difficulties. But … He looked candidly back at M. ‘Should be a piece of cake, sir. As far as I can see there’s only one snag. She’s only seen photographs of me and read a lot of exciting stories. Suppose that when she sees me in the flesh, I don’t come up to her expectations.’
‘That’s where the work comes in,’ said M. grimly. ‘That’s why I asked those questions about Miss Case. It’s up to you to see that you do come up to her expectations.’
13 | ‘B.E.A. TAKES YOU THERE…’
The four small, square-ended propellers turned slowly, one by one, and became four whizzing pools. The low hum of the turbo-jets rose to a shrill smooth whine. The quality of the noise, and the complete absence of vibration, were different from the stuttering roar and straining horsepower of all other aircraft Bond had flown in. As the Viscount wheeled easily out to the shimmering east-west runway of London Airport, Bond felt as if he was sitting in an expensive mechanical toy.
There was a pause as the chief pilot gu
In ten minutes they had reached 20,000 feet and were heading south along the wide air-cha
Q Branch had put together this smart-looking little bag, ripping out the careful handiwork of Swaine and Adeney to pack fifty rounds of .25 ammunition, in two flat rows, between the leather and the lining of the spine. In each of the i
The complicated bag of tricks amused Bond, but he also had to admit that, despite its eight-pound weight, the bag was a convenient way of carrying the tools of his trade, which otherwise would have to be concealed about his body.
Only a dozen miscellaneous passengers were on the plane. Bond smiled at the thought of Loelia Ponsonby’s horror if she knew that that made the load thirteen. The day before, when he had left M. and had gone back to his office to arrange the details of his flight, his secretary had protested violently at the idea of his travelling on Friday the thirteenth.
‘But it’s always best to travel on the thirteenth,’ Bond had explained patiently. ‘There are practically no passengers and it’s more comfortable and you get better service. I always choose the thirteenth when I can.’
‘Well,’ she had said resignedly, ‘it’s your funeral. But I shall spend the day worrying about you. And for heaven’s sake don’t go walking under ladders or anything silly this afternoon. You oughtn’t to overplay your luck like this. I don’t know what you’re going to Turkey for, and I don’t want to know. But I have a feeling in my bones.’
‘Ah, those beautiful bones!’ Bond had teased her. ‘I’ll take them out to di
‘You’ll do nothing of the sort,’ she had said coldly. Later she had kissed him goodbye with a sudden warmth, and for the hundredth time Bond had wondered why he bothered with other women when the most darling of them all was his secretary.
The plane sang steadily on above the endless sea of whipped-cream clouds that looked solid enough to land on if the engines failed. The clouds broke up and a distant blue haze, far away to their left, was Paris. For an hour they flew high over the burned-up fields of France until, after Dijon, the land turned from a pale to a darker green as it sloped up into the Juras.
Lunch came. Bond put aside his book and the thoughts that kept coming between him and the printed page, and, while he ate, he gazed down at the cool mirror of the Lake of Geneva. As the pine forests began to climb towards the snow patches between the beautifully scoured teeth of the Alps, he remembered early skiing holidays. The plane skirted the great eye-tooth of Mont Blanc, a few hundred yards to port, and Bond looked down at the dirty grey elephant’s skin of the glaciers and saw himself again, a young man in his teens, with the leading end of the rope round his waist, bracing himself against the top of a rock-chimney on the Aiguilles Rouges as his two companions from the University of Geneva inched up the smooth rock towards him.
And now? Bond smiled wryly at his reflection in the Perspex as the plane swung out of the mountains and over the grosgrained terrazza of Lombardy. If that young James Bond came up to him in the street and talked to him, would he recognize the clean, eager youth that had been him at seventeen? And what would that youth think of him, the secret agent, the older James Bond? Would he recognize himself beneath the surface of this man who was tarnished with years of treachery and ruthlessness and fear – this man with the cold arrogant eyes and the scar down his cheek and the flat bulge beneath his left armpit? If the youth did recognize him what would his judgment be? What would he think of Bond’s present assignment? What would he think of the dashing secret agent who was off across the world in a new and most romantic role – to pimp for England?