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‘That’s about it,’ commented M. ‘From every point of view, including politics, not that they matter all that much. But neither the P.M. nor the President would last five minutes if anything went wrong. But whether we pay or don’t pay, the consequences will be endless – and all bad. That’s why absolutely everything has got to be done to find these people and the plane and stop the thing in time. The P.M. and the President are entirely agreed. Every intelligence man all over the world who’s on our side is being put on to this operation – Operation Thunderball they’re calling it. Planes, ships, submarines – and of course money’s no object. We can have everything, whenever we want it. The Cabinet have already set up a special staff and a war-room. Every scrap of information will be fed into it. The Americans have done the same. Some kind of a leak can’t be helped. It’s being put about that all the panic, and it is panic, is because of the loss of the Vindicator – bombs included, whatever fuss that may cause politically. Only the letter will be absolutely secret. All the usual detective work – finger-prints, Brighton, writing paper – these’ll be looked after by Scotland Yard with the F.B.I., Interpol, and all the N.A.T.O. intelligence organizations helping where they can. Only a segment of the paper and the typing will be used – a few i
Bond lit another cigarette, his sinful third in one hour. He said, putting unconcern into his voice, ‘Where do I come in, sir?’
M. looked vaguely at Bond, as if seeing him for the first time. Then he swivelled his chair and gazed again through the window at nothing. Finally he said, in a conversational tone of voice, ‘I have committed a breach of faith with the P.M. in telling you all this, 007. I was under oath to tell no one what I have just told you. I decided to do what I have done because I have an idea, a hunch, and I wish this idea to be pursued by a’ – he hesitated – ‘by a reliable man. It seemed to me that the only grain of possible evidence in this case was the D.E.W. radar plot, a doubtful one I admit, of the plane that left the East–West air cha
Bond interrupted. ‘If you’re right, sir, why didn’t SPECTRE send their letter to the President instead of the P.M.?’
‘For the sake of obscurity. To make us do what we are doing – hunting all round the world instead of only in one part of it. And for maximum impact. SPECTRE would realize that the arrival of the letter right on top of the loss of the bomber would hit us in the solar plexus. It might, they would reason, even shake the money out of us without any further effort. The next stage of their operation, attacking target No. 1, is going to be a nasty business for them. It’s going to expose their whereabouts to a considerable extent. They’d like to collect the money and close the operation as quickly as possible. That’s what we’ve got to gamble on. We’ve got to push them as close to the use of No. 1 bomb as we dare in the hope that something will betray them in the next six and three-quarter days. It’s a slim chance. I’m pi
‘All right, sir.’ Bond got to his feet. ‘I’d rather have had some-where more interesting – the Iron Curtain beat for instance. I can’t help feeling this is a bigger operation than a small unit could take on. For my money this looks more like a Russian job. They get the experimental plane and the bombs – they obviously want them – and throw dust in our eyes with all this SPECTRE ballyhoo. If SMERSH was still in business, I’d say they’d got a finger in it somewhere. Just their style. But the Eastern Stations may pick up something on that if there’s anything in the idea. Anything else, sir? Who do I co-operate with in Nassau?’
‘The Governor knows you’re coming. They’ve got a well-trained police force. C.I.A. are sending down a good man, I gather. With a communications outfit. They’ve got more of that sort of machinery than we have. Take a cipher machine with the Triple X setting. I want to hear every single detail you turn up. Personal to me. Right?’
‘Right, sir.’ Bond went to the door and let himself out. There was nothing more to be said. This looked like the biggest job the Service had ever been given and, in Bond’s opinion, for he didn’t give much for M.’s guess, he had been relegated to the back row of the chorus. So be it. He would get himself a good sunburn and watch the show from the wings.
When Bond walked out of the building, carrying the neat leather cipher case, an expensive movie camera perhaps, slung over his shoulder, the man in the beige Volkswagen stopped scratching the burn-scab under his shirt, loosened, for the tenth time, the long-barrelled forty-five in the holster under his arm, started the car and put it in gear. He was twenty yards behind Bond’s parked Bentley. He had no idea what the big building was. He had simply obtained Bond’s home address from the receptionist at Shrublands and, as soon as he got out of the Brighton hospital, he had carefully tailed Bond. The car was hired, under an assumed name. When he had done what had to be done he would go straight to London Airport and take the first plane out to any country on the Continent. Count Lippe was a sanguine individual. The job, the private score he had to settle, presented no problem to him. He was a ruthless, vengeful man and he had eliminated many obstreperous and perhaps dangerous people in his life. He reasoned that, if they ever came to hear of this, SPECTRE would not object. The overheard telephone conversation on that first day at the clinic showed that his cover had been broached, however slightly, and it was just conceivable that he could be traced through his membership of the Red Lightning Tong. From there to SPECTRE was a long step, but Sub-operator G knew that once a cover began to run, it ran like an old sock. Apart from that, this man must be paid off. Count Lippe had to be quits with him.