“Lucky he got away with it.”
“Miracle. Thanks entirely to that Frenchman who was with him. Got your man on the floor and gave him artificial respiration as if he was drowning. Somehow kept his lungs going until the doctor came. Luckily the doctor had worked in South America. Diagnosed curare and treated him accordingly. But it was a chance in a million. By the same token, what happened to the Russian woman?”
M said shortly, “Oh, she died. Well, many thanks, Sir James. And don’t worry about your patient. I’ll see he has an easy time of it. Goodbye.”
M hung up. His face was cold and blank. He pulled over the signal file and went quickly through it. On some of the signals he scribbled a comment. Occasionally he made a brief telephone call to one of the Sections. When he had finished he tossed the pile into his Out basket and reached for his pipe and the tobacco jar made out of the base of a fourteen-pounder shell. Nothing remained in front of him except a buff folder marked with the Top Secret red star. Across the centre of the folder was written in block capitals: CARIBBEAN STATION, and underneath, in italics, Strangways and Trueblood.
A light winked on the intercom. M pressed down the switch. “Yes?”
“007’s here, sir.”
“Send him in. And tell the Armourer to come up in five minutes.”
M sat back. He put his pipe in his mouth and set a match to it. Through the smoke he watched the door to his secretary’s office. His eyes were very bright and watchful.
James Bond came through the door and shut it behind him.
He walked over to the chair across the desk from M and sat down.
“‘Morning, 007.”
“Good morning, sir.”
There was silence in the room except for the rasping of M’s pipe. It seemed to be taking a lot of matches to get it going. In the background the fingernails of the sleet slashed against the two broad windows.
It was all just as Bond had remembered it through the months of being shunted from hospital to hospital, the weeks of dreary convalescence, the hard work of getting his body back into shape. To him this represented stepping back into life. Sitting here in this room opposite M was the symbol of normality he had longed for. He looked across through the smoke clouds into the shrewd grey eyes. They were watching him. What was coming? A post-mortem on the shambles which had been his last case? A curt relegation to one of the home sections for a spell of desk work? Or some splendid new assignment M had been keeping on ice while waiting for Bond to get back to duty?
M threw the box of matches down on the red leather desk. He leant back and clasped his hands behind his head.
“How do you feel? Glad to be back?”
“Very glad, sir. And I feel fine.”
“Any final thoughts about your last case? Haven’t bothered you with it till you got well. You heard I ordered an inquiry. I believe the Chief of Staff took some evidence from you. Anything to add?”
M’s voice was businesslike, cold. Bond didn’t like it. Something unpleasant was coming. He said, “No, sir. It was a mess. I blame myself for letting that woman get me. Shouldn’t have happened.”
M took his hands from behind his neck and slowly leant forward and placed them flat on the desk in front of him. His eyes were hard. “Just so.” The voice was velvet, dangerous. “Your gun got stuck, if I recall. This Beretta of yours with the silencer. Something wrong there, 007. Can’t afford that sort of mistake if you’re to carry an oo number. Would you prefer to drop it and go back to normal duties?”
Bond stiffened. His eyes looked resentfully into M’s. The licence to kill for the Secret Service, the double-o prefix, was a great honour. It had been earned hardly. It brought Bond the only assignments he enjoyed, the dangerous ones. “No, I wouldn’t, sir.”
“Then we’ll have to change your equipment. That was one of the findings of the Court of Inquiry. I agree with it. D’you understand?”