So that was it. There had been little doubt in Bond’s mind ever since the Spandau had opened up on them, and since, even before then, in Jamaica, where the attempts on him had not been half-hearted. Bond had assumed from the first that this man was a killer, that it would be a duel to the death. He had had his usual blind faith that he would win the duel-all the way until the moment when the flame-thrower had pointed at him. Then he had begun to doubt. Now he knew. This man was too strong, too well equipped.
Bond said, “There is no point in the girl hearing this. She has nothing to do with me. I found her yesterday on the beach. She is a Jamaican from Morgan’s Harbour. She collects shells. Your men destroyed her canoe so I had to bring her with me. Send her away now and then back home. She won’t talk. She will swear not to.”
The girl interrupted fiercely, “I will talk! I shall tell everything. I’m not going to move. I’m going to stay with you.”
Bond looked at her. He said icily, “I don’t want you.”
Doctor No said softly, “Do not waste your breath on these heroics. Nobody who comes to this island has ever left it. Do you understand? Nobody-not even the simplest fisherman. It is not my policy. Do not argue with me or attempt to bluff me. It is entirely useless.”
Bond examined the face. There was no anger in it, no obstinacy-nothing but a supreme indifference. He shrugged his shoulders. He looked at the girl and smiled. He said, “All right, Honey. And I didn’t mean it. I’d hate you to go away. We’ll stay together and listen to what the maniac has to say.”
The girl nodded happily. It was as if her lover had threatened to send her out of the cinema and now had relented.
Doctor No said, in the same soft resonant voice, “You are right, Mister Bond. That is just what I am, a maniac. All the greatest men are maniacs. They are possessed by a mania which drives them forward towards their goal. The great scientists, the philosophers, the religious leaders-all maniacs. What else but a blind singleness of purpose could have given focus to their genius, would have kept them in the groove of their purpose? Mania, my dear Mister Bond, is as priceless as genius. Dissipation of energy, fragmentation of vision, loss of momentum, the lack of follow-through-these are the vices of the herd.” Doctor No sat slightly back in his chair. “I do not possess these vices. I am, as you correctly say, a maniac-a maniac, Mister Bond, with a mania for power. That”-the black holes glittered blankly at Bond through the contact lenses-“is the meaning of my life. That is why I am here. That is why you are here. That is why here exists.”
Bond picked up his glass and drained it. He filled it again from the shaker. He said, “I’m not surprised. It’s the old business of thinking you’re the King of England,’,or the President of the United States, or God. The asylums are full of them. The only difference is that instead of being shut up, you’ve built your own asylum and shut yourself up in it. But why did you do it? Why does sitting shut up in this cell give you the illusion of power?”
Irritation flickered at the corner of the thin mouth. “Mister Bond, power is sovereignty. Clausewitz’s first principle was to have a secure base. From there one proceeds to freedom of action. Together, that is sovereignty. I have secured these things and much besides. No one else in the world possesses them to the same degree. They cannot have them. The world is too public. These things can only be secured in privacy. You talk of kings add presidents. How much power do they possess? As much as their people will allow them. Who in the world has the power of life or death over his people? Now that Stalin is dead, can you name any man except myself? And how do I possess that power, that sovereignty? Through privacy. Through the fact that nobody knows. Through the fact that I have to account to no one.”