“Damn M! Damn you! Damn the whole silly Service!” There were angry tears in the voice. “You’re just a lot of children playing at Red Indians. Taking these people on by yourself! It’s – it’s showing off. That’s all it is. Showing off.”
Bond was beginning to get annoyed. He said: “That’s enough, Mary Ann. Put that report on the printer. I’m sorry, but it’s an order.”
There was resignation in the voice. “Oh, all right. You don’t have to pull your rank on me. But don’t get hurt. At least you’ll have the boys from the local Station to pick up the bits. Good luck.”
“Thanks, Mary Ann. And will you have dinner with me tomorrow night? Some place like Armenonville. Pink champagne and gipsy violins. Paris in the spring routine.”
“Yes,” she said seriously. “I’d like that. But then take care all the more, would you? Please?”
“Of course I will. Don’t worry. Goodnight.”
“‘Night.”
Bond spent the rest of the evening putting a last high polish on his plans and giving a final briefing to the four men from the Station.
It was another beautiful day; Bond, sitting comfortably astride the throbbing BSA waiting for the off, could hardly believe in the ambush that would now be waiting for him just beyond the Carrefour Royal. The corporal from the Signal Corps who had handed him his empty dispatch-case and was about to give him the signal to go said: “You look as if you’d been in the Royal Corps all your life, sir. Time for a haircut soon, I’d say, but the uniform’s bang on. How d’you like the bike, sir?”
“Goes like a dream. I’d forgotten what fun these damned things are.”
“Give me a nice little Austin A40 any day, sir.” The corporal looked at his watch. “Seven o’clock just coming up.” He held up his thumb. “Okay.”
Bond pulled the goggles down over his eyes, lifted a hand to the corporal, kicked the machine into gear and wheeled off across the gravel and through the main gates.
Off 184 and on to 307, through Bailly and Noisy-le-Roi and there was the straggle of St Nom. Here he would be turning sharp right on to D98 – the ‘route de la mort’, as the handler had called it. Bond pulled into the grass verge and once more looked to the long-barrel .45 Colt. He put the warm gun back against his stomach and left the jacket button undone. On your marks! Get set . . . !
Bond took the sharp corner and accelerated up to fifty. The viaduct carrying the Paris autoroute loomed up ahead. The dark mouth of the tunnel beneath it opened and swallowed him. The noise of his exhaust was gigantic, and for an instant there was a tunnel smell of cold and damp. Then he was out in the sunshine again and immediately across the Carrefour Royal. Ahead the oily tarmac glittered dead straight for two miles through the enchanted forest and there was a sweet smell of leaves and dew. Bond cut his speed to forty. The driving-mirror by his left hand shivered slightly with his speed. It showed nothing but an empty unfurling vista of road between lines of trees that curled away behind him like a green wake. No sign of the killer. Had he taken fright? Had there been some hitch? But then there was a tiny black speck in the centre of the convex glass – a midge that became a fly and then a bee and then a beetle. Now it was a crash helmet bent low over handlebars between two big black paws. God, he was coming fast! Bond’s eyes flickered from the mirror to the road ahead and back to the mirror. When the killer’s right hand went for his gun . . . !
Bond slowed – thirty-five, thirty, twenty. Ahead the tarmac was smooth as metal. A last quick look in the mirror. The right hand had left the handlebars. The sun on the man’s goggles made huge fiery eyes below the rim of the crash helmet. Now! Bond braked fiercely and skidded the BSA through forty-five degrees, killing the engine. He was not quite quick enough on the draw. The killer’s gun flared twice and a bullet tore into the saddle-springs beside Bond’s thigh. But then the Colt spoke its single word, and the killer and his BSA, as if lassoed from within the forest, veered crazily off the road, leapt the ditch and crashed head-on into the trunk of a beech. For a moment the tangle of man and machinery clung to the broad trunk and then, with a metallic death-rattle, toppled backwards into the grass.