Anya felt her nostrils twitch before the scent of roses that some Russian men wear to disguise the fact that they cannot be bothered to wash. Nikitin’s head was bending towards her lap and she saw that the crimped line across his forehead denoted a wig. An obscene dribble of rust-coloured adhesive leaked from beneath the hairline.
Anya fought a desire to be sick. Her skirt was now pressed back against her waist and the animal hand ... She rose to her feet and thrust Nikitin aside as she launched herself at the desk. She pressed a finger to her lips and snatched up a thin state-issued ballpoint. Nikitin watched her like an animal ready to spring.
The record of Sergei’s death still lay on the desk and Anya turned it over and wrote urgently. This had to work. She had seen Nikitin’s hand drop below the desk and she knew what it meant.
She finished her message and thrust it into Nikitin’s wary hand. He looked at her with slow-burning hate and raised it to his eyes. ‘Most honoured. But I know from Military Records that there is another microphone hidden in your room.’
Nikitin raised his eyes from the message and for a second let them rest on the ceiling. Then he slowly made his way back round the table. He lowered himself into his chair and a slight subsidence of the right shoulder revealed that a hand had been dropped. The eyes that looked towards Anya were as devoid of expression as the face of the moon.
‘But I did not bring you here to discuss the unfortunate death of Comrade Borzov. There is an assignment of great importance for which I think you may be suited ..
Hunt the Submarine
August had committed an act of treachery against the English summer and rain was lashing the windows of M’s office overlooking Regent’s Park.
The old man was having trouble with his pipe as usual. Bond let him get on with it and gazed around at the familiar fittings he had come to know so well over the years. The Venetian blinds that gave an impression of coolness even on the hottest day; the dark green Wilton carpet leading to the big, red leather-topped desk; the twin-bladed tropical fan, now immobile, set in the ceiling directly above M’s desk.
The Head of Britain’s Secret Service had lost no time in summoning Bond to his office. No sooner had Station J contacted him at Chamonix and told him that his presence was urgently required at headquarters than he had screamed down the motorway to Geneva and caught the first plane to London. And no sooner was he behind his desk staring glumly at the pile of routine signals and reports marked ‘for your urgent attention’ that always arrived in droves when he left the country than the telephone had rung.
‘007.’
‘Can you come up?’ It was the Chief-of-Staff.
‘M?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s it all about?’
‘I don’t know, but it’s serious.'
It always is, thought Bond as he put down the receiver. He left his office and took the lift up to the top floor. The walk down the long, quiet corridor was familiar and he knew exactly how many paces it would take. Thirty, before he came to the outer door of M’s office. The girl behind the desk was un
familiar and unbeautiful so the smile that Bond bestowed upon her was dutiful rather than anticipatory. She bent forward and pressed the switch of the intercom.
‘007 is here, sir.’
‘Send him in,’ said the metallic voice, and the red light which meant ‘on no account must I be disturbed' glowed above the door.
That had been ten minutes ago and Bond was still listening to the rasping and sucking noises. At last they stopped and M dropped the still smoking husk of a match in the big copper ashtray.
‘So you found Q’s gadgets useful did you, James?’
‘Very efficacious, sir.’
'I thought you were going to fire them into the side of mountains. That sort of thing.’
‘That was my intention, sir.’
M attacked his pipe with a small pick and turned away to billow clouds of smoke towards the ceiling. There was a dry twinkle in his eye as he turned back towards Bond. will be very impressed when you submit your report. I don’t think he had any idea that you were going to be so zealous in your testing of his new toys.’
‘It came as a surprise to me, sir.’
M looked at Bond, not without affection. ‘While we’re on the subject. We had a signal from the French DST.’
‘What are they going to do?’
‘Nothing.’ M registered the sharp rise of Bond’s right eyebrow and continued. ‘They’re leaving the matter in the hands of the local gendarmerie. A chalet fire of this description is not uncommon.’ Bond was now sitting forward in his chair. ‘Perhaps you did not notice that there was petrol stored by the hut - for the Snowcats. The young people must have tried to start a fire and - well you know how dangerous it can be with petrol.’
‘A man and a girl.’ Bond nodded. A sensible way for them to have covered their traces. The man he had shot and the girl in the cupboard consigned to flames.
‘There appear to have been two women and one man,’ said M. ‘The bodies burned almost beyond recognition. Any identification will have to wait for the next of kin to come forward.’
Which could take a long, long time, thought Bond. So, Martine Blanchaud, or whatever her real name was, had paid the ultimate price for incompetence. There was only one organization capable of that combination of brutality, guile and casual disregard for human life. Bond decided to express his feelings to M.
‘I think it was SMERSH, sir. They were after me. But, like last time, they wanted to make me stink even before I was rotting in my coffin. There was a dead girl in the hut - some drugged little tart from the back streets of Lyon, most probably. They’d hacked her up like shark bait.’
‘And you were the shark.’ M nodded grimly. He could see the newspaper headlines (‘DRUG-CRAZED BRITISH AGENT SLAYS IN MOUNTAIN LOVE NEST!), the Home Secretary on the telephone, the official denials, the snide questions from the fellow- travellers in the House of Commons, the satisfied smiles round the table of the High Praesidium in the Kremlin. Yes, once again 007 had been fortunate. Was it Napoleon who had always supported one of his marshals because he was lucky? ‘Strange that this should happen now, James.’
Bond looked at M inquiringly and reached for the flat, light gunmetal case containing fifty Balkan and Turkish mixture cigarettes, specially made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street. He extracted one and ran a finger over the triple gold band before placing it between his lips. ‘What’s up, sir?’
M’s tranquil, lined sailor’s face suddenly became tense. ‘What does HMS
Bond flicked through the card index in his mind. ‘One of our Resolution Class nuclcar-powered ballistic-missile submarines, sir.’ M’s approving silence told him to continue. ‘Laid down by Vickers-Armstrong at Barrow-in-Furness in 1967. Operational in 1971. Length approximately three- hundred and seventy feet. Beam thirty-three feet. Surface displacement seven thousand five hundred tons - submerged eight thousand four hundred. Speed reputed to be twenty knots on the surface and twenty-five submerged - although the submerged figure may be on the slow side. Ship’s complement, a hundred and fifty-one men; sixteen officers and one hundred and thirty-five ratings - they operate on a two-crew basis to get maximum time at sea.’ Bond broke off and put the battered, oxidized Ronson to work on his cigarette. M’s demanding eyes bored into him as he directed a thin stream of smoke towards the ceiling.
‘And the armament?’
‘Six conventional 533 mm torpedo homing tubes placed forward and sixteen Polaris surface-to-surface intercontinental missiles with a range in excess of two thousand five hundred miles.’
M continued to stare levelly. Bond noticed that his pipe had gone out. ‘HMS
The rain persisted in its attack on the windows and for long seconds its angry patter was the only sound heard in the cool* dark room.
