The Man With the Golden Gun (James Bond, #13)

by Ian Fleming

THE SECRET Service holds much that is kept secret even from very senior officers in the organization. Only M. and his Chief of Staff know absolutely everything there is to know. The latter is responsible for keeping the Top Secret record known as ‘The War Book’ so that, in the event of the death of both of them, the whole story, apart from what is available to individual Sections and Stations, would be available to their successors.

James Bond said dully,

the head waitress,

Miss Moneypenny brought in the signals and stood dutifully beside him while he went through them, occasionally dictating a comment or a query. She looked down at the bowed, iron-grey head with the bald patch polished for years by a succession of naval caps and wondered, as she had wondered so often over the past ten years, whether she loved or hated this man. One thing was certain. She respected him more than any man she had known or had read of.

Is an insatiable but indiscriminate womanizer who invariably has sexual intercourse shortly before a killing in the belief that it improves his “eye”. (N.B. a belief shared by many professional lawn tennis players, golfers, gun and rifle marksmen and others.)

He stabbed the cigarette out.

Bond added blandly,

inbuilt dislike of cold murder, the feeling that this was not the predestined moment, the likelihood that he would have to murder the chauffeur also – these, combined with the softness of the night and the fact that the ‘Sound System’ was now playing a good recording of one of his favourites, ‘After You’ve Gone’, and that cicadas were singing from the lignum vitae tree, said ‘No’. But at that moment, as the car coasted down Love Lane towards the bright mercury of the sea, James Bond knew that he was not only disobeying orders, or at best dodging them, he was also being a bloody fool.

The first law for a secret agent is to get his geography right, his means of access and exit, and assure his communications with the outside world.

It was a simple booby trap but it would give him all the warning he needed. Then he took off his shorts and got into bed and slept.

A nightmare woke him, sweating, around two in the morning. He had been defending a fort. There were other defenders with him, but they seemed to be wandering around aimlessly, ineffectively, and when Bond shouted to rally them they seemed not to hear him.

He gave a thin managerial smile and said, ‘Good morning,

watching Leiter come back across the marble floor and speak deferentially to Bond. ‘You were saying, sir?’ ‘It’s my lavatory. Something

Bond nodded his thanks and turned away. In the booth, Hendriks was talking. His eyes were fixed on Bond with a terrible intensity. Bond felt the skin crawl at the base of his stomach. This was it all right! He sat down and picked up an old Wall Street Journal. Surreptitiously he tore a small piece out of the centre of page one. It could have been a tear at the cross-fold. He held the paper up at page two and watched Hendriks through the little hole.

friend at K.G.B. headquarters, Semichastny, has got it in for me.

Green Island Harbour, deep-sea fishing and all that. I’ve reconnoitred

He took a strong nip of straight bourbon and sat on the edge of his

It would have been impossible to guess that James Bond was contemplating the possibility of his own death later that day, feeling the soft-nosed bullets tearing into him, seeing his body jerking on the ground, his mouth perhaps screaming.

Those were certainly part of his thoughts, but the twitching right hand was evidence that, in much of the whirring film of his thoughts, the enemy’s fire was not going unanswered – perhaps had even been anticipated.

Now Bond could only hear disjointed words.

The adrenalin coursed into James Bond’s bloodstream. His pulse rate began to run a fraction high. He felt it on his wrist. He breathed deeply and slowly to bring it down. He found that he was sitting forward, tensed. He sat back and tried to relax.