Bond took a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and held it out to her, and she shivered with fear and knew what was coming. She took her arms from round him and looked at the paper. It was one of the rough squares of newspaper from the spike in the little lavatory. She always tore these squares herself and discarded any that contained words in English – just in case.
Bond pointed. ‘Kissy, what is this word “Vladivostok”? What does it mean? It has some kind of a message for me. I connect it with a very big country. I believe the country is called Russia. Am I right?’
Kissy remembered her promise to the priest. She put her face in her hands. ‘Yes, Taro-san. That is so.’
Bond pressed his fists to his eyes and squeezed. ‘I have a feeling that I have had much to do with this Russia, that a lot of my past life was concerned with it. Could that be possible? I long so terribly to know where I came from before I came to Kuro. Will you help me, Kissy?’
Kissy took her hands from her face and looked at him. She said quietly, ‘Yes, I will help you, my beloved.’
‘Then I must go to this place Vladivostok, and perhaps it will awaken more memories and I can work my way back from there.’
‘If you say so, my love. The mailboat goes to Fukuoka tomorrow. I will put you on a train there and give you money and full directions. It is advertised that one can go from the northern island, Hokkaido, to Sakhalin which is on the Russian mainland. Then you can no doubt make your way to Vladivostok. It is a great port to the south of Sakhalin. But you must take care, for the Russians are not friendly people.’
‘Surely they would do no harm to a fisherman from Kuro?’
Kissy’s heart choked her. She got up and walked slowly down to the boat. She pushed the boat down the pebbles into the water and waited, at her usual place in the stern, for him to get in and for his knees to clasp hers as they always did.
James Bond took his place and unshipped the oars, and the cormorant scrambled on board and perched imperiously in the bows. Bond measured where the rest of the fleet lay on the horizon and began to row.
Kissy smiled into his eyes and the sun shone on his back and, so far as James Bond was concerned, it was a beautiful day just like all the other days had been – without a cloud in the sky.
But then, of course, he didn’t know that his name was James Bond. And, compared with the blazing significance to him of that single Russian word on the scrap of paper, his life on Kuro, his love for Kissy Suzuki, were, in Tiger’s phrase, of as little account as sparrows’ tears.
THE END
THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN
Book 12
1 | ‘CAN I HELP YOU?’
The Secret Service holds much that is kept secret even from very senior officers in the organization. Only M. and his Chief of Staff know absolutely everything there is to know. The latter is responsible for keeping the Top Secret record known as ‘The War Book’ so that, in the event of the death of both of them, the whole story, apart from what is available to individual Sections and Stations, would be available to their successors.
One thing that James Bond, for instance, didn’t know was the machinery at Headquarters for dealing with the public, whether friendly or otherwise – drunks, lunatics, bona fide applications to join the Service, and enemy agents with plans for penetration or even assassination.
On that cold, clear morning in November he was to see the careful cog-wheels in motion.
The girl at the switchboard at the Ministry of Defence flicked the switch to ‘Hold’ and said to her neighbour, ‘It’s another nut who says he’s James Bond. Even knows his code number. Says he wants to speak to M. personally.’
The senior girl shrugged. The switchboard had had quite a few such calls since, a year before, James Bond’s death on a mission to Japan had been announced in the Press. There had even been one pestiferous woman who, at every full moon, passed on messages from Bond from Uranus where it seemed he had got stuck while awaiting entry into heaven. She said, ‘Put him through to Liaison, Pat.’
The Liaison Section was the first cog in the machine, the first sieve. The operator got back on the line: ‘Just a moment, sir. I’ll put you on to an officer who may be able to help you.’
James Bond, sitting on the edge of his bed, said, ‘Thank you.’
He had expected some delay before he could establish his identity. He had been warned to expect it by the charming ‘Colonel Boris’ who had been in charge of him for the past few months after he had finished his treatment in the luxurious Institute on the Nevsky Prospekt in Leningrad. A man’s voice came on the line. ‘Captain Walker speaking. Can I help you?’
James Bond spoke slowly and clearly. ‘This is Commander James Bond speaking. Number 007. Would you put me through to M., or his secretary, Miss Moneypenny. I want to make an appointment.’
Captain Walker pressed two buttons on the side of his telephone. One of them switched on a tape recorder for the use of his department, the other alerted one of the duty officers in the Action Room of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard that he should listen to the conversation, trace the call, and at once put a tail on the caller. It was now up to Captain Walker, who was in fact an extremely bright ex-prisoner-of-war interrogator from Military Intelligence, to keep the subject talking for as near five minutes as possible. He said, ‘I’m afraid I don’t know either of these two people. Are you sure you’ve got the right number?’
James Bond patiently repeated the Regent number which was the main outside line for the Secret Service. Together with so much else, he had forgotten it, but Colonel Boris had known it and had made him write it down among the small print on the front page of his forged British passport that said his name was Frank Westmacott, company director.
‘Yes,’ said Captain Walker sympathetically. ‘We seem to have got that part of it right. But I’m afraid I can’t place these people you want to talk to. Who exactly are they? This Mr Em, for instance. I don’t think we’ve got anyone of that name at the Ministry.’
‘Do you want me to spell it out? You realize this is an open line?’
Captain Walker was rather impressed by the confidence in the speaker’s voice. He pressed another button and, so that Bond would hear it, a telephone bell rang. He said, ‘Hang on a moment, would you? There’s someone on my other line.’ Captain Walker got on to the head of his Section. ‘Sorry, sir. I’ve got a chap on who says he’s James Bond and wants to talk to M. I know it sounds crazy and I’ve gone through the usual motions with the Special Branch and so on, but would you mind listening for a minute? Thank you, sir.’
Two rooms away a harassed man, who was the Chief Security Officer for the Secret Service, said ‘Blast!’ and pressed a switch. A microphone on his desk came to life. The Chief Security Officer sat very still. He badly needed a cigarette, but his room was now ‘live’ to Captain Walker and to the lunatic who called himself ‘James Bond’. Captain Walker’s voice came over at full strength. ‘I’m so sorry. Now then. This man Mr Em you want to talk to. I’m sure we needn’t worry about security. Could you be more specific?’
James Bond frowned. He didn’t know that he had frowned and he wouldn’t have been able to explain why he had done so. He said, and lowered his voice, again inexplicably, ‘Admiral Sir Miles Messervy. He is head of a department in your Ministry. The number of his room used to be twelve on the eighth floor. He used to have a secretary called Miss Moneypenny. Good-looking girl. Brunette. Shall I give you the Chief of Staff’s name? No? Well let’s see, it’s Wednesday. Shall I tell you what’ll be the main dish on the menu in the canteen? It should be steak-and-kidney pudding.’