THUNDERBALL: by Ian Fleming

Bond said doubtfully, “Of course I know what you mean, Felix. Perhaps it’s just that in England we don’t feel quite as secure as you do in America. The war just doesn’t seem to have ended for us— Berlin, Cyprus, Kenya, Suez, let alone these jobs with people like SMERSH that I used to get tangled up in. There always seems to be something boiling up somewhere. Now this damned business. Dare say I’m taking it all too seriously, but there’s something fishy going on around here. I checked up on that fuel problem and Largo certainly told us a lie.” Bond gave the details of what he had learned at police headquarters. “I feel I’ve got to make sure tonight. You realize there’s only about seventy hours to go? If I find anything, I suggest tomorrow we take a small plane and really run a search over as much of the area as we can. That plane’s a big thing to hide even under water. You still got your license?”

“Sure, sure.” Leiter shrugged his shoulders. “I’ll go along with you. Of course I will. If we find anything, perhaps the signal I got this evening won’t look so damned silly after all.”

So this was what had put Leiter into such a vile temper! Bond said, “What was that?”

Leiter took a drink and gazed morosely into his glass. “Well, for my money it’s just so much more attitudinizing by those power-struck fatcats at the Pentagon. But that sheaf of stuff I was waving about was a circular to all our men on this job to say that the Army and the Navy and the Air Force are holding themselves ready to give full support to C.I.A. if anything turns up. Think of that, dammit!” Leiter looked angrily at Bond. “Think of the waste of fuel and manpower that must be going on all over the world keeping all these units at readiness! Just to show you, know what I’ve been allocated as my striking force?” Leiter gave a harsh, derisive laugh. “Half squadron of Super Sabre fighter bombers from Pensacola, and—” Leiter stabbed at Bond’s forearm with a hard finger—“and, my friend, the Manta! The —— Manta! Our latest —— atomic submarine!” When Bond smiled at all this vehemence, Leiter continued more reasonably: “Mark you, it’s not quite so idiotic as it sounds. These Sabres are on anti-submarine sweep duties anyway. Carrying depth charges. They have to be at readiness. And the Manta happens to be on some sort of a training cruise in the area, getting ready to go under the South Pole for a change I suppose, or some other damned promotion job to help along the Navy Estimates. But I ask you! Here’s all these million dollars’ worth of material on instant call from Ensign Leiter, commanding Room 201 in the Royal Bahamian Hotel! Not bad!”

Bond shrugged his shoulders. “Seems to me your President is taking all this a bit more seriously than his man in Nassau. I suppose our Chiefs of Staff have weighed in with our stuff on the other side of the Atlantic. Anyway, no harm in having the big battalions in the offing just in case Nassau Casino happens to be Target No. 1. By the way, what ideas have your people got about these targets? What have you got in this part of the world that fits in with SPECTRE’S letter? We’ve only got the joint rocket base at a place called Northwest Cay at the eastern end of the Grand Bahamas. That’s about a hundred and fifty miles north of here. Apparently the gear and prototypes we and your people have got there would easily be worth £100,000,000.”

“The only possible targets I’ve been given are Cape Canaveral, the naval base at Pensacola, and, if the party really is going to take place in this area, Miami for target No. 2, with Tampa as a possible runner-up. SPECTRE used the words `a piece of property belonging to the Western Powers.’ That sounds like some kind of installation to me— something like the uranium mines in the Congo, for instance. But a rocket base would fit all right. If we’ve got to take this thing seriously, I’d lay odds on Canaveral or this place on Grand Bahama. Only thing I can’t understand, if they’ve got these bombs, how are they going to transport them to the target and set them off?”

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