Half an hour later life had started up in the glade again. An hour later still, when the high sun had darkened the shadows, James Bond silently edged backwards along his branch, dropped softly on to a patch of moss behind some brambles and melted carefully back into the forest.
That evening Bond's routine call with Mary Ann Russell was a stormy one. She said: "You're crazy. I'm not going to let you do it. I'm going to get Head of F to ring up Colonel Schreiber and tell him the whole story. This is SHAPE's job. Not yours."
Bond said sharply: "You'll do nothing of the sort. Colonel Schreiber says he's perfectly happy to let me make a dummy run tomorrow morning instead of the duty dispatch-rider. That's all he needs to know at this stage.Reconstruction of the crime sort of thing. He couldn't care less. He's practically closed the file on this business. Now, be a good girl and do as you're told. Just put my report on the printer to M. He'll see the point of me cleaning this thing up. He won't object."
"Damn M! Damn you! Damn the whole silly Service!" There were angry tears in the voice. "You're just a lot of children playing at Red Indians. Taking these people on byyourself ! It's - it's showing off. That's all it is.Showing off."
Bond was beginning to get annoyed. He said: "That's enough, Mary Ann. Put that report on the printer. I'm sorry, but it's an order."
There was resignation in the voice. "Oh, all right. You don't have to pull your rank on me. But don't get hurt. At least you'll have the boys from the local Station to pick up the bits. Good luck."
"Thanks, Mary Ann. And will you have dinner with me tomorrow night? Some place like Armenonville.Pink champagne and gipsy violins.Parisin the spring routine."
"Yes," she said seriously. "I'd like that. But then take care all the more, would you? Please?"
"Of course I will. Don't worry. Goodnight."
"'Night."
Bond spent the rest of the evening putting a last high polish on his plans and giving a final briefing to the four men from the Station.
It was another beautiful day; Bond, sitting comfortably astride the throbbing BSA waiting for the off, could hardly believe in the ambush that would now be waiting for him just beyond the Carrefour Royal. The corporal from the Signal Corps who had handed him his empty dispatch-case and was about to give him the signal to go said: "You look as if you'd been in the Royal Corps all your life, sir. Time for a haircut soon, I'd say, but the uniform's bang on. How d'you like the bike, sir?"
"Goes like a dream. I'd forgotten what fun these damned things are."
"Give me a nice little Austin A40 any day, sir." The corporal looked at his watch."Seven o'clockjust coming up." He held up his thumb. "Okay."
Bond pulled the goggles down over his eyes, lifted a hand to the corporal, kicked the machine into gear and wheeled off across the gravel and through the main gates.
Off 184 and on to 307, through Bailly and Noisy-le-Roi and there was the straggle of St Nom. Here he would be turning sharp right on to D98 - the 'route de la mort', as the handler had called it. Bond pulled into the grass verge and once more looked to the long-barrel.45 Colt. He put the warm gun back against his stomach and left the jacket button undone. On your marks! Get set... !
Bond took the sharp corner and accelerated up to fifty. The viaduct carrying theParis autoroute loomed up ahead. The dark mouth of the tunnel beneath it opened and swallowed him. The noise of his exhaust was gigantic, and for an instant there was a tunnel smell of cold and damp. Then he was out in the sunshine again and immediately across the Carrefour Royal. Ahead the oily tarmac glittered dead straight for two miles through the enchanted forest and there was a sweet smell of leaves and dew. Bond cut his speed to forty. The driving-mirror by his left hand shivered slightly with his speed. It showed nothing but an empty unfurling vista of road between lines of trees that curled away behind him like a green wake. No sign of the killer. Had he taken fright? Had there been some hitch? But then there was a tiny black speck in the centre of the convex glass - a midge that became a fly and then a bee and then a beetle. Now it was a crash helmet bent low over handlebars between two big black paws. God, he was coming fast! Bond's eyes flickered from the mirror to the road ahead and back to the mirror. When the killer's right hand went for his gun... !
Bond slowed - thirty-five, thirty,twenty. Ahead the tarmac was smooth as metal.A last quick look in the mirror. The right hand had left the handlebars. The sun on the man's goggles made huge fiery eyes below the rim of the crash helmet. Now! Bond braked fiercely andskidded the BSA through forty-five degrees, killing the engine. He was not quite quick enough on the draw. The killer's gun flared twice and a bullet tore into the saddle-springs beside Bond's thigh. But then the Colt spoke its single word, and the killer and his BSA, as if lassoed from within the forest, veered crazily off the road, leapt the ditch and crashed head-on into the trunk of a beech. For a moment the tangle of man and machinery clung to the broad trunk and then, with a metallic death-rattle, toppled backwards into the grass.
Bond got off his machine and walked over to the ugly twist of khaki and smoking steel. There was no need to feel for a pulse. Wherever the bullet had struck, the crash helmet had smashed like an eggshell. Bond turned away and thrust his gun back into the front of his tunic. He had been lucky. It would not do to press his luck. He got on the BSA and accelerated back down the road.
He leant the BSA up against one of the scarred trees just inside the forest and walked softly through to the edge of the clearing. He took up his stand in the shadow of the big beech. He moistened his lips and gave, as near as he could, the killer's bird-whistle. He waited. Had he got the whistle wrong? But then the bush trembled and the high thin whine began. Bond hooked his right thumb through his belt within inches of his gun-butt. He hoped he would not have to do any more killing. The two underlings had not seemed to be armed. With any luck they would come quietly.
Now the curved doors were open. From where he was, Bond could not see down the shaft, but within seconds the first man was out and putting on his snowshoes and the second followed. Snowshoes! Bond's heart missed a beat. He had forgotten them! They must be hidden back there in the bushes. Blasted fool! Would they notice?
The two men came slowly towards him, delicately placing their feet. When he was about twenty feet away, the leading man said something softly in what sounded like Russian. When Bond did not reply, the two men stopped in their tracks. They stared at him in astonishment, waiting perhaps for the answer to a password. Bond sensed trouble. He whipped out his gun and moved towards them, crouching."Hands up." He gestured with the muzzle of the Colt. The leading man shouted an order and threw himself forward. At the same time the second man made a dash back towards the hideout. A rifle boomed from among the trees and the man's right leg buckled under him. The men from the Station broke cover and came running. Bond fell to one knee and clubbed upwards with his gun-barrel at the hurtling body. It made contact, but then the man was on him. Bond saw fingernails flashing towards his eyes, ducked and ran into an upper-cut. Now a hand was at his right wrist and his gun was being slowly turned on him. Not wanting to kill, he had kept the safety catch up. He tried to get his thumb to it. A boot hit him in the side of the head and he let the gun go and fell back. Through a red mist he saw the muzzle of the gun pointing at his face. The thought flashed through his mind that he was going to die - die for showing mercy... !
Suddenly the gun muzzle had gone and the weight of the man was off him. Bond got to his knees and then to his feet. The body, spreadeagled in the grass beside him, gave a last kick. There were bloody rents in the back of the dungarees. Bond looked round. The four men from the Station were in a group. Bond undid the strap of his crash helmet and rubbed the side of his head. He said: "Well, thanks. Who did it?"
Nobody answered. The men looked embarrassed.
Bond walked towards them, puzzled. "What's up?"
Suddenly Bond caught a trace of movement behind the men. An extra leg showed - a woman's leg. Bond laughed out loud. The men grinned sheepishly
and looked behind them. Mary Ann Russell, in a brown shirt and black jeans, came out from behind them with her hands up. One of the hands held what looked like a.22 target pistol. She brought her hands down and tucked the pistol into the top of her jeans. She came up to Bond. She said anxiously: "You won't blame anybody, will you? I just wouldn't let them leave this morning without me." Her eyes pleaded. "Rather lucky I did come, really. I mean, I just happened to get to you first. No one wanted to shoot for fear of hitting you."
Bond smiled into her eyes. He said: "If you hadn't come, I'd have had to break that dinner date." He turned back to the men, his voice businesslike."All right. One of youtake the motor-bike and report the gist of this to Colonel Schreiber. Say we're waiting for his team before we take a look at the hide-out. And would he include a couple of anti-sabotage men. That shaft may be booby-trapped.All right?"
Bond took the girl by the arm. He said: "Come over here. I want to show you a bird's nest."
"Is that an order?"
"Yes."
3. QUANTUM OF SOLACE
James Bond said: "I've always thought that if I ever married I would marry an air hostess."
The dinner party had been rather sticky, and now that the other two guests had left accompanied by the ADC to catch their plane, the Governor and Bond were sitting together on a chintzy sofa in the large Office of Works furnished drawing-room, trying to make conversation. Bond had a sharp sense of the ridiculous. He was never comfortable sitting deep in soft cushions. He preferred to sit up in a solidly upholstered armed chair with his feet firmly on the ground. And he felt foolish sitting with an elderly bachelor on his bed of rose chintz gazing at the coffee and liqueurs on the low table between their outstretched feet. There was something clubable, intimate,even rather feminine, about the scene and none of these atmospheres was appropriate.
Bond didn't likeNassau. Everyone was too rich. The winter visitors and the residents who had houses on the island talked of nothing but their money, their diseases and their servant problems. They didn't even gossip well. There was nothing to gossip about. The wintercrowd were all too old to have love affairs and, like most rich people, too cautious to say anything malicious about their neighbours. The Harvey Millers the couple that had just left, were typical - a pleasant rather dull Canadian millionaire who had got into Natural Gas early on and stayed with it, and his pretty chatterbox of a wife. It seemed that she was English. She had sat next to Bond and chattered vivaciously about 'what shows he had recently seen in town' and 'didn't he think the Savoy Grill was the nicest place for supper. One saw so many interesting people - actresses and people like that'. Bond had done his best, but since he had not seen a play for two years, and then only because the man he was following inVienna had gone to it, he had had to rely on rather dusty memories ofLondon night life which somehow failed to marry up with the experiences of Mrs Harvey Miller.
Bond knew that the Governor had asked him to dinner only as a duty, and perhaps to help out with the Harvey Millers. Bond had been in the Colony for a week and was leaving forMiami the next day. It had been a routine investigation job. Arms were getting to the Castro rebels inCuba from all the neighbouring territories. They had been coming principally fromMiami and theGulf of Mexico , but when the US Coastguards had seized two big shipments, the Castro supporters had turned toJamaica and theBahamas as possible bases, and Bond had been sent out fromLondon to put a stop to it. He hadn't wanted to do the job. If anything, his sympathies were with the rebels, but the Government had a big export programme withCuba in exchange for taking more Cuban sugar than they wanted, and a minor condition of the deal was thatBritain should not give aid or comfort to the Cuban rebels. Bond had found out about the two big cabin cruisers that were being fitted out for the job, and rather than make arrests when they were about to sail, thus causing an incident, he had chosen a very dark night and crept up on the boats in a police launch. From the deck of the unlighted launch he had tossed a thermite bomb through an open port of each of them. He had then made off at high speed and watched the bonfire from a distance. Bad luck on the insurance companies, of course, but there were no casualties and he had achieved quickly and neatly what M had told him to do.
So far as Bond was aware, no one in the Colony, except the Chief of Police and two of his officers, knew who had caused the two spectacular, and - to those in the know - timely fires in the roadstead. Bond had reported only to M inLondon. He had not wished to embarrass the Governor, who seemed to him an easily embarrassable man, and it could in fact have been unwise to give him knowledge of a felony which might easily be the subject of a question in the Legislative Council. But the Governor was no fool. He had known the purpose of Bond's visit to the Colony, and that evening, when Bond had shaken him by the hand, the dislike of a peaceable man for violent action had been communicated to Bond by something constrained and defensive in the Governor's manner.
This had been no help to the dinner party, and it had needed all the chatter and gush of a hard-working ADC to give the evening the small semblance of life it had achieved.
And now it was only nine-thirty, and the Governor and Bond were faced with one more polite hour before they could go gratefully to their beds, each relieved that he would never have to see the other again. Not that Bond had anything against the Governor. He belonged to a routine type that Bond had often encountered round the world - solid, loyal, competent, sober and just: the best type of Colonial Civil Servant. Solidly, competently, loyally he would have filled the minor posts for thirty years while the Empire crumbled around him; and now, just in time, by sticking to the ladders and avoiding the snakes, he had got to the top. In a year or two it would be the GCB and out - out to Godalming, orCheltenham or Tunbridge Wells with a pension and a small packet of memories of places like theTrucial Oman , theLeeward Islands ,British Guiana , that no one at the local golf club would have heard of or would care about. And yet, Bond had reflected that evening, how many small dramas such as the affair of the Castro rebels must the Governor have witnessed or been privy to! How much he would know about the chequerboard of the small-power politics, the scandalous side of life in small communities abroad, the secrets of people that lie in the files of Government Houses round the world. But how could one strike a spark off this rigid, discreet mind? How could he, James Bond, whom the Governor obviously regarded as a dangerous man and as a possible source of danger to his own career, extract one ounce of interesting fact or comment to save the evening from being a futile waste of time?
Bond's careless and slightly mendacious remark about marrying an air hostess had come at the end of some desultory conversation about air travel that had followed dully, inevitably, on the departure of the Harvey Millers to catch their plane forMontreal. The Governor had said that BOAC were getting the lion's share of the American traffic toNassau because, though their planes might be half an hour slower from Idlewild, the service was superb. Bond had said, boring himself with his own banality, that he would rather fly slowly and comfortably than fast and uncosseted. It was then that he had made the remark about air hostesses.
"Indeed," said the Governor in the polite, controlled voice that Bond prayed might relax and become human. "Why?"
"Oh, I don't know. It would be fine to have a pretty girl always tucking you up and bringing you drinks and hot meals and asking if you had everything you wanted. And they're always smiling and wanting to please. If I don't marry an air hostess, there'll be nothing for it but marrya Japanese. They seem to have the right ideas too." Bond had no intention of marrying anyone. If he did, it would certainly not be an insipid slave. He only hoped to amuse or outrage the Governor into a discussion of some human topic.
"I don't know about the Japanese, but I suppose it has occurred to you that these air hostesses are only trained to please, that they might be quite different when they're not on the job, so to speak." The Governor's voice was reasonable, judicious.
"Since I'm not really very interested in getting married, I've never taken
the trouble to investigate."
There was a pause. The Governor's cigar had gone out. He spent a moment or two getting it going again. When he spoke it seemed to Bond that the even tone had gained a spark of life, of interest. The Governor said: "There was a man I knew once who must have had the same ideas as you. He fell in love with an air hostess and married her. Rather an interesting story, as a matter of fact. I suppose," the Governor looked sideways at Bond and gave a short self-deprecatory laugh, "you see quite a lot of the seamy side of life. This story may seem to you on the dull side. But would you care to hear it?"
"Very much."Bond put enthusiasm into his voice. He doubted if the Governor's idea of what was seamy was the same as his own, but at least it would save him from making any more asinine conversation.Now to get away from this damnably cloying sofa. He said: "Could I have some more brandy?" He got up, dashed an inch of brandy into his glass and, instead of going back to the sofa, pulled up a chair and sat down at an angle from the Governor on the other side of the drink tray.
The Governor examined the end of his cigar, took a quick pull and held the cigar upright so that the long ash would not fall off. He watched the ash warily throughout his story and spoke as if to the thin trickle of blue smoke that rose and quickly disappeared in the hot, moist air.
Ian Fleming - James Bond 007 - 08 - 1960 - For Your Eyes Only Page 8
