Fleming, Ian – From Russia with Love

Bond commented: `The public agent often does better than the man who has to spend a lot of time and energy keeping under cover.’

`So she sent Kerim the note. Now she wants to know if he can help her.’ M paused and sucked thoughtfully at his pipe. `Of course Kerim’s first reactions were exactly the same as yours, and he fished around looking for a trap. But he simply couldn’t see what the Russians could gain from sending this girl over to us. All this time the steamer was getting further and further up the Bosphorus and soon it would be turning to come back to Istanbul. And the girl got more and more desperate as Kerim went on trying to break down her story. Then,’ M’s eyes glittered softly across at Bond, `came the clincher.’

That glitter in M’s eyes, thought Bond. How well he knew those moments when M’s cold eyes betrayed their excitement and their greed.

`She had a last card to play. And she knew it was the ace of trumps. If she could come over to us, she would bring her cipher machine with her. It’s a brand new Spektor machine. The thing we’d give our eyes to have.’

`God,’ said Bond softly, his mind boggling at the immensity of the prize. The Spektor! The machine that would allow them to decipher the Top Secret traffic of all. To have that, even if its loss was immediately discovered and the settings changed, or the machine taken out of service in Russian embassies, and spy centres all over the world, would be a priceless victory. Bond didn’t know much about cryptography, and, for security’s sake, in case he was ever captured, wished to know as little as possible about its secrets, but at least he knew that, in the Russian secret service, loss of the Spektor would be counted a major disaster.

Bond was sold. At once he accepted all M’s faith in the girl’s story, however crazy it might be. For a Russian to bring them this gift, and take the appalling risk of bringing it, could only mean an act of desperation–of desperate infatuation if you liked. Whether the girl’s story was true or not, the stakes were too high to turn down the gamble.

`You see, 007?’ said M softly. It was not difficult to read Bond’s mind from the excitement in his eyes. `You see what I mean?’

Bond hedged. `But did she say how she could do it?’

`Not exactly. But Kerim says she was absolutely definite. Some business about night duty. Apparently she’s on duty alone certain nights of the week and sleeps on a camp bed in the office. She seemed to have no doubts about it, although she realized that she would be shot out of hand if anyone even dreamed of her plan. She was even worried about Kerim reporting all this back to me. Made him promise he would encode the signal himself and send it on a one-time-only pad and keep no copy. Naturally he did as she asked. Directly she mentioned the Spektor, Kerim knew he might be on to the most important coup that’s come our way since the war.’

`What happened then, sir?’

`The steamer was coming up to a place called Ortakoy. She said she was going to get off there. Kerim promised to get a signal off that night. She refused to make any arrangements for staying in touch. Just said that she would keep her end of the bargain if we would keep ours. She said good night and mixed in the crowd going down the gang-plank and that was the last Kerim saw of her.’

M suddenly leant forward in his chair and looked hard at Bond. `But of course he couldn’t guarantee that we would make the bargain with her.’

Bond said nothing. He thought he could guess what was coming.

`This girl will only do these things on one condition.’ M’s eyes narrowed until they were fierce, significant slits. `That you go out to Istanbul and bring her and the machine back to England.’

Bond shrugged his shoulders. That presented no difficulties. But … He looked candidly back at M. `Should be a piece of cake, sir. As far as I can see there’s only one snag. She’s only seen photographs of me and read a lot of exciting stories. Suppose that when she sees me in the flesh, I don’t come up to her expectations.’

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