The James Bond Anthology

‘First I need a car. Anything that’ll go. Then I want the name of the top man at Frome, you know, the WISCO estate beyond Savannah La Mar. Large-scale survey map of that area, a hundred pounds in Jamaican money. Then be an angel and ring up Alexander’s the auctioneers and find out anything you can about a property that’s advertised in today’s Gleaner. Say you’re a prospective buyer. Three and a half Love Lane. You’ll see the details. Then I want you to come out to Morgan’s Harbour where I’m going in a minute, be staying the night there, and we’ll have dinner and swop secrets until the dawn steals over the Blue Mountains. Can do?’

‘Of course. But that’s the hell of a lot of secrets. What shall I wear?’

‘Something that’s tight in the right places. Not too many buttons.’

She laughed. ‘You’ve established your identity. Now I’ll get on with all this. See you about seven.’ Bye.’

Gasping for air, James Bond pushed his way out of the little sweat box. He ran his handkerchief over his face and neck. He’d be damned! Mary Goodnight, his darling secretary from the old days in the OO Section! At Headquarters they had said she was abroad. He hadn’t asked any questions. Perhaps she had opted for a change when he had gone missing. Anyway, what a break! Now he’d got an ally, someone he knew. Good old Gleaner

! He got his bag from the Cuban Airlines booth and went out and hailed a taxi and said ‘Morgan’s Harbour’ and sat back and let the air from the open windows begin to dry him.

The romantic little hotel is on the site of Port Royal at the tip of the Palisadoes. The proprietor, an Englishman who had once been in Intelligence himself and who guessed what Bond’s job was, was glad to see him. He showed Bond to a comfortable air-conditioned room with a view of the pool and the wide mirror of Kingston harbour. He said, ‘What is it this time? Cubans or smuggling? They’re the popular targets these days.’

‘Just on my way through. Got any lobsters?’

‘Of course.’

‘Be a good chap and save two for dinner. Broiled with melted butter. And a pot of that ridiculously expensive foie gras of yours. All right?’

‘Wilco. Celebration? Champagne on the ice?’

‘Good idea. Now I must get a shower and some sleep. That Kingston Airport’s murder.’

James Bond awoke at six. At first he didn’t know where he was. He lay and remembered. Sir James Molony had said that his memory would be sluggish for a while. The E.C.T. treatment at The Park, a discreet so-called ‘convalescent home’ in a vast mansion in Kent, had been fierce. Twenty-four bashes at his brain from the black box in thirty days. After it was over, Sir James had confessed that, if he had been practising in America, he wouldn’t have been allowed to administer more than eighteen. At first, Bond had been terrified at the sight of the box and of the two cathodes that would be cupped to each temple. He had heard that people undergoing shock treatment had to be strapped down, that their jerking, twitching bodies, impelled by the volts, often hurtled off the operating-table. But that, it seemed, was old hat. Now there was the longed-for needle with the pentathol, and Sir James said there was no movement of the body when the current flashed through except a slight twitching of the eyelids. And the results had been miraculous. After the pleasant, quiet-spoken analyst had explained to him what had been done to him in Russia, and after he had passed through the mental agony of knowing what he had nearly done to M., the old fierce hatred of the K.G.B. and all its works had been reborn in him and, six weeks after he had entered The Park, all he wanted was to get back at the people who had invaded his brain for their own murderous purposes. And then had come his physical rehabilitation and the inexplicable amount of gun practice he had had to do at the Maidstone police range. And then the day arrived when the Chief of Staff had come down and explained about the gun practice and had spent the day with him and given him his orders, the scribble of green ink, signed ‘M.’ , that wished him luck, and then the excitement of the ride to London Airport on his way across the world.