THUNDERBALL: by Ian Fleming

M swiveled his chair round so they were facing each other. “Well?”

Bond noticed that M’s eyes, three weeks before so clear and vital, were now bloodshot and strained. No wonder! He said, “If this plane, and the weapons, really are missing, I think it stands up, sir. I think they mean it. I think it’s a true bill.”

M said, “So does the War Cabinet. So do I.” He paused. “Yes, the plane with the bombs is missing. And the stock numbers on the bombs are correct.”

8.

“Big Fleas Have Little Fleas . . .”

Bond said, “What is there to go on, sir?”

“Damned little, practically speaking nothing. Nobody’s ever heard of these SPECTRE people. We know there’s some kind of independent unit working in Europe—we’ve bought some stuff from them, so have the Americans, and Mathis admits now that Goltz, that French heavy-water scientist who went over last year, was assassinated by them, for big money, as a result of an offer he got out of the blue. No names were mentioned. It was all done on the radio, the same 16 megacycles that’s mentioned in the letter. To the Deuxième Communications section. Mathis accepted on the off-chance. They did a neat job. Mathis paid up—a suitcase full of money left at a Michelin road sign on N1. But no one can tie them in with these SPECTRE people. When we and the Americans dealt, there were endless cutouts, really professional ones, and anyway we were more interested in the end product than the people involved. We both paid a lot of money, but it was worth it. If it’s the same group working this, they’re a serious outfit and I’ve told the P.M. so. But that’s not the point. The plane is missing and the two bombs, just as the letter says. All details exactly correct. The Vindicator was on a NATO training flight south of Ireland and out into the Atlantic.” M reached for a bulky folder and turned over some pages. He found what he wanted. “Yes, it was to be a six-hour flight leaving Boscombe Down at eight p.m. and due back at two a.m. There was an R.A.F. crew of five and a NATO observer, an Italian, man called Petacchi, Giuseppi Petacchi, squadron leader in the Italian Air Force, seconded to NATO. Fine flyer, apparently, but they’re checking on his background now. He was sent over here on a normal tour of duty. The top pilots from NATO have been coming over for months to get used to the Vindicator and the bomb-release routines. This plane’s apparently going to be used for the NATO long-range striking force. Anyway”—M turned over a page—“the plane was watched on the screen as usual and all went well until it was west of Ireland at about forty thousand feet. Then, contrary to the drill, it came down to around thirty thousand and got lost in the transatlantic air traffic. Bomber Command tried to get in touch, but the radio couldn’t or wouldn’t answer. The immediate reaction was that the Vindicator had hit one of the transatlantic planes and there was something of a panic. But none of the companies reported any trouble or even a sighting.” M looked across at Bond. “And that was the end of it. The plane just vanished.”

Bond said, “Did the American DEW line pick it up—their Defense Early Warning system?”

“There’s a query on that. The only grain of evidence we’ve got. Ap” parently about five hundred miles east of Boston there was some evidence that a plane had peeled off the inward route to Idlewild and turned south. But that’s another big traffic lane—for the northern traffic from Montreal and Gander down to Bermuda and the Bahamas and South America. So these DEW operators just put it down as a B.O.A.C. or Trans-Canada plane.” “It certainly sounds as if they’ve got the whole thing worked out pretty well, hiding in these traffic lanes. Could the plane have turned northwards in the middle of the Atlantic and made for Russia?”

“Yes, or southwards. There’s a big block of space about five hundred miles out from both shores that’s out of radar range. Better still, it could have turned on its tracks and come back in to Europe on any of two or three air lanes. In fact it could be almost anywhere in the world by now. That’s the point.”