I knew it would be the end of our love if I told you. I realized that I could either wait to be killed by SMERSH, and perhaps get you killed too, or I could kill myself.
There it is, my darling love. You can’t stop me calling you that or saying that I love you. I am taking that with me and the memories of you.
I can’t tell you much to help you. The Paris number was Invalides 55200. I never met any of them in London. Everything was done through an accommodation address, a newsagents at 450 Charing Cross Place.
At our first dinner together you talked about that man in Yugoslavia who was found guilty of treason. He said: ‘I was carried away by the gale of the world.’ That’s my only excuse. That, and for love of the man whose life I tried to save.
It’s late now and I’m tired, and you’re just through two doors. But I’ve got to be brave. You might save my life, but I couldn’t bear the look in your dear eyes.
My love, my love.
Bond threw the letter down. Mechanically he brushed his fingers together. Suddenly he banged his temples with his fists and stood up. For a moment he looked out towards the quiet sea, then he cursed aloud, one harsh obscenity.
His eyes were wet and he dried them.
He pulled on a shirt and trousers and with a set cold face he walked down and shut himself in the telephone booth.
While he was getting through to London, he calmly reviewed the facts of Vesper’s letter. They all fitted. The little shadows and question marks of the past four weeks, which his instinct had noted but his mind rejected, all stood out now like signposts.
He saw her now only as a spy. Their love and his grief were relegated to the boxroom of his mind. Later, perhaps they would be dragged out, dispassionately examined, and then bitterly thrust back with other sentimental baggage he would rather forget. Now he could only think of her treachery to the Service and to her country and of the damage it had done. His professional mind was completely absorbed with the consequences – the covers which must have been blown over the years, the codes which the enemy must have broken, the secrets which must have leaked from the centre of the very section devoted to penetrating the Soviet Union.
It was ghastly. God knew how the mess would be cleared up.
He ground his teeth. Suddenly Mathis’s words came back to him: ‘There are plenty of really black targets around,’ and, earlier, ‘What about SMERSH? I don’t like the idea of these chaps running around France killing anyone they feel has been a traitor to their precious political system.’
Bond grinned bitterly to himself.
How soon Mathis had been proved right and how soon his own little sophistries had been exploded in his face!
While he, Bond, had been playing Red Indians through the years (yes, Le Chiffre’s description was perfectly accurate), the real enemy had been working quietly, coldly, without heroics, right there at his elbow.
He suddenly had a vision of Vesper walking down a corridor with documents in her hand. On a tray. They just got it on a tray while the cool secret agent with a Double O number was gallivanting round the world – playing Red Indians.
His finger nails dug into the palms of his hands and his body sweated with shame.
Well, it was not too late. Here was a target for him, right to hand. He would take on SMERSH and hunt it down. Without SMERSH, without this cold weapon of death and revenge, the M.W.D. would be just another bunch of civil servant spies, no better and no worse than any of the western services.
SMERSH was the spur. Be faithful, spy well, or you die. Inevitably and without any question, you will be hunted down and killed.
It was the same with the whole Russian machine. Fear was the impulse. For them it was always safer to advance than to retreat. Advance against the enemy and the bullet might miss you. Retreat, evade, betray, and the bullet would never miss.
But now he would attack the arm that held the whip and the gun. The business of espionage could be left to the white-collar boys. They could spy, and catch the spies. He would go after the threat behind the spies, the threat that made them spy.
The telephone rang and Bond snatched up the receiver.
He was on to ‘the Link’, the outside liaison officer who was the only man in London he might telephone from abroad. Then only in dire necessity.
He spoke quietly into the receiver.
‘This is 007 speaking. This is an open line. It’s an emergency. Can you hear me? Pass this on at once. 3030 was a double, working for Redland.
‘Yes, dammit, I said “was”. The bitch is dead now.’
THE END
LIVE AND LET DIE
Book 2
1 | THE RED CARPET
There are moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service.
From the moment the B.O.A.C. Stratocruiser taxied up to the International Air Terminal at Idlewild, James Bond was treated like royalty.
When he left the aircraft with the other passengers he had resigned himself to the notorious purgatory of the U.S. Health, Immigration and Customs machinery. At least an hour, he thought, of overheated, drab-green rooms smelling of last year’s air and stale sweat and guilt and the fear that hangs round all frontiers, fear of those closed doors marked PRIVATE that hide the careful men, the files, the teleprinters chattering urgently to Washington, to the Bureau of Narcotics, Counter Espionage, the Treasury, the F.B.I.
As he walked across the tarmac in the bitter January wind he saw his own name going over the network: BOND, JAMES. BRITISH DIPLOMATIC PASSPORT 0094567, the short wait and the replies coming back on the different machines: NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE. And then, from the F.B.I: POSITIVE AWAIT CHECK. There would be some hasty traffic on the F.B.I. circuit with the Central Intelligence Agency and then: F.B.I. TO IDLEWILD: BOND OKAY OKAY, and the bland official out front would hand him back his passport with a ‘Hope you enjoy your stay, Mr Bond.’
Bond shrugged his shoulders and followed the other passengers through the wire fence towards the door marked U.S. HEALTH SERVICE.
In his case it was only a boring routine, of course, but he disliked the idea of his dossier being in the possession of any foreign power. Anonymity was the chief tool of his trade. Every thread of his real identity that went on record in any file diminished his value and, ultimately, was a threat to his life. Here in America, where they knew all about him, he felt like a negro whose shadow has been stolen by the witchdoctor. A vital part of himself was in pawn, in the hands of others. Friends, of course, in this instance, but still …
‘Mr Bond?’
A pleasant-looking nondescript man in plain clothes had stepped forward from the shadow of the Health Service building.
‘My name’s Halloran. Pleased to meet you!’
They shook hands.
‘Hope you had a pleasant trip. Would you follow me, please?’
He turned to the officer of the Airport police on guard at the door.
‘Okay, Sergeant.’
‘Okay, Mr Halloran. Be seeing you.’
The other passengers had passed inside. Halloran turned to the left, away from the building. Another policeman held open a small gate in the high boundary fence.