On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Synopsis: In the helicopter, after the take-off from Zürich, James Bond wore a mask of nonchalance as he sped toward the Alpine hideaway of his prey, the malevolent Ernst Stavro Blofeld, mastermind of Spectre and the most hunted criminal in the Western world. Beside him sat the inscrutable Fräulein Irma Bunt, plain-as-a-prune and personal secretary to Le Comte de Bleuville who, Bond believed, was actually the devious Blofeld himself, and behind him lay a chain of events that had involved not only Bond and his government's security but a dread brotherhood of Corsican cutthroats, a beautiful girl with suicidal intentions, and a mission so perilous that Bond's own chief--the ineffable M--placed no more than a farthing on the possibility of its success and less than that on Bond's own chances of survival.

It had begun that day on the beach at Royale les Eaux when La Comtesse Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo (whose losses at chemin de fer Bond had covered the night before at the Casino, and who had repaid him for this gesture with a night in her bed) ran toward the surf in an apparent attempt at self-destruction. Bond had rushed to save her--and then there were two automatics at his back and two thugs behind them. Kidnaped and taken to the hide-out of Marc-Ange Draco, Tracy's father and head of the Union Corse, infamous Corsican crime syndicate, Bond was offered £1,000,000 by Draco to marry his daughter. Instead, Bond persuaded Draco to send Tracy to a Swiss sanitarium to treat her suicidal compulsions--while he, in the guise of Sir Hilary Bray, of Her Majesty's College of Arms and Heraldry, embarked again upon the quest for Blofeld.

At the mountain eyrie of the mysterious De Bleuville, apparently innocent yet strangely ominous experiments were being conducted in a secret laboratory where he investigated the cures for psychosomatic allergies to vegetables and farm animals. His subliminally brainwashed guinea pigs: 10 beautiful girls, each from a different area of the United Kingdom. After learning the identity of each of the girls (and spending a night in the boudoir of the choicest of them), Bond's real identity was suspected by Blofeld when Shaun Campbell, a fellow Secret Service man captured by Blofeld's henchmen while on another mission, blurted out his colleague's first name while under the pressure of torture. What a God-awful mess! thought Bond behind the cool façade of Sir Hilary Bray.

Realizing that it would be but a matter of hours before Blofeld would send an emissary after him as a prelude to a rather thoroughgoing "investigation" of his identity, Bond resolved to depart from his foe's redoubt with as much alacrity as possible under the circumstances. That night he slipped from his room, adroitly dispatched the guard at his door and, as the man's body slid to the carpet, bolted from the lodge, locked the door behind him, ran to the ski shack and bound on his skis. In his pocket a flask of schnapps burned warm against his flank. He pulled his goggles down over his eyes; he knew that as soon as Blofeld's men pried open the lodge door they would be after him. Every minute, every second was a bonus for Bond. Ahead, lay the Gloria ski run, the metal warning notices beside it hatted with snow. James Bond went straight for it and over the edge.

The first vertical drop had a spine-chilling bliss to it. Bond got down into his old Arlberg crouch, his hands forward of his boots, and just let himself go. His skis were an ugly six inches apart. The Kannonen he had watched had gone down with their boots locked together, as if on a single ski. But this was no time for style, even if he had been capable of it! Above all he must stay upright!

Bond's speed was now frightening. But the deep cushion of cold, light powder snow gave him the confidence to try a parallel swing. Minimum of shoulder turn needed at this speed--weight onto the left ski--and he came round and held it as the right-hand edges of his skis bit against the slope, throwing up a shower of moonlit snow crystals. Danger was momentarily forgotten in the joy of speed, technique and mastery of the snow. Bond straightened up and almost dived into his next turn, this time to the left, leaving a broad S on the virgin mountain behind him. Now he could afford to schuss the rest down to the hard left-hand turn round the shoulder. He pointed his skis down and felt real rapture as, like a black bullet on the giant slope, he zoomed down the 45-degree drop. Now for the left-hand corner. There was the group of three flags, black, red and yellow, hanging limply, their colors confused by the moonlight! He would have to stop there and take a recce over the next lap. There was a slight upward slope short of the big turn. Bond took it at speed, felt his skis leave the ground at the crest of it, jabbed into the snow with his left stick as an extra lever and threw his skis and his right shoulder and hips round to the left. He landed in a spray of snow, at a dead halt. He was delighted with himself! A Sprung-Christiana is a showy and not an easy turn at speed. He wished his old teacher, Fuchs, had been there to see that one!

He was now on the shoulder of the mountain. High overhead the silver strands of the cable railway plunged downward in one great swoop toward the distant black line of the trees, where the moonlight glinted on a spidery pylon. Bond remembered that there now followed a series of great zigs and zags more or less beneath the cables. With the piste unobscured, it would have been easy, but the new snow made every descent look desirable. Bond jerked up his goggles to see if he could spot a flag. Yes, there was one away down to the left. He would do some S turns down the next slope and then make for it.

As he pulled down his goggles and gripped his sticks, two things happened. First, there came a deep boom from high up the mountain, and a speck of flame, that wobbled in its flight, soared into the sky above him. There was a pause at the top of its parabola, a sharp crack and a blazing magnesium flare on a parachute began its wandering descent, wiping out the black shadows in the hollows, turning everything into a hideous daylight. Another and another sprayed out across the sky, lighting every cranny over the mountainside.

And, at the same time, the cables high above Bond's head began to sing! They were sending the cable car down after him!

Bond cursed into the sodden folds of his silk handkerchief and got going. The next thing would be a man after him--probably a man with a gun!

He took the second lap more carefully than the first, got across to the second flag, turned at it and made back across the plunging slope for the series of linked Ss under the cables. How fast did these bloody gondolas go? Ten, fifteen, twenty miles an hour? This was the latest type. It would be the fastest. Hadn't he read somewhere that the one between Arosa and the Weisshorn did 25? Even as he got into his first S, the tune of the singing cable above him momentarily changed and then went back to its usual whine. That was the gondola passing the first pylon! Bond's knees, the Achilles' heel of all skiers, were beginning to ache. He cut his Ss narrower, snaking down faster, but now feeling the rutted tracks of the piste under his skis at every turn. Was that a flag away over to the left? The magnesium flares were swaying lower, almost directly over him. Yes. It looked all right. Two more S turns and he would do a traverse schuss to it!

Something landed with a tremendous crack amidst a fountain of snow to his right! Another to his left! They had a grenade thrower up front in the cable car! A bracket! Would the next one be dead on? Almost before the thought flashed through his mind, there came a tremendous explosion just ahead of him and he was hurled forward and sideways in a Catherine wheel of sticks and skis.

Bond got gingerly to his feet, gasping and spitting snow. One of his bindings had opened. His trembling fingers found the forward latch and banged it tight again. Another sharp crack, but wide by 20 yards. He must get away from the line of fire from the blasted railway! Feverishly he thought, the left-hand flag! I must do the traverse now. He took a vague bearing across the precipitous slope and flung himself down it.

It was tricky, undulating ground. The magnesium flares had sailed lower and there were ugly patches of black shadow, any of which might have been a small ravine. Bond had to check at all of them and each time the sharp Christie reminded him of his legs and ankles. But he got across without a fall and pulled up at the flag, panting. He looked back. The gondola had stopped. They had telephone communication with the top and bottom stations, but why had it stopped? As if in answer, blue flames fluttered gaily from the forward cabin. But Bond heard no bullets. The gondola would be swaying on its cable. But then, high up above him, from somewhere near the first flags on the shoulder, came more rapid fire, from two points, and the snow kicked up daintily around him. So the guides had finally got after him! His fall would have cost him minutes. How much lead had he got? Certainly less than 10 minutes. A bullet whanged into one of his skis and sang off down the mountain. Bond took a last gulp of breath and got going again, still left-handed, away from the cable railway, toward the next flag, a distant dot on the edge of the shadow thrown by the great Matterhorn-shaped peak of Piz Gloria, which knifed up into the spangled sky in dreadful majesty.

It looked as if the run was going to take him dangerously close to the skirts of the peak. Something was nagging at his mind, a tiny memory. What was it? It was something unpleasant. Yes, by God! The last flag! It had been black. He was on the Black Run, the one closed because of avalanche danger! God! Well, he'd had it now. No time to try and get back on the Red Run. And, anyway, the Red had a long stretch close to the cables. He'd just have to chance it. And what a time to chance it, just after a heavy fall of new snow, and with all these detonations to loosen up the stuff! When there was danger of an avalanche, guides forbade even speech! Well, to hell with it! Bond zoomed on across the great unmarked slope, got to the next flag, spotted the next, away down the mountainside toward the treeline. Too steep to schuss! He would just have to do it in Ss.

And then the bastards chose to fire off three more flares followed by a stream of miscellaneous rockets that burst prettily among the stars. Of course! Bright idea! This was for the sake of watchers in the valley who might be inquisitive about the mysterious explosions high up the mountain. They were having a party up there, celebrating something. What fun these rich folk had, to be sure! And (continued on page 136)Her Majesty's Secret Service(continued from page 116) then Bond remembered. But of course! It was Christmas Eve! God rest ye merry gentlemen, let nothing you dismay! Bond's skis hissed an accompaniment as he zig-zagged fast down the beautiful snow slope. White Christmas! Well, he'd certainly got himself that!

But then, from high up above him, he heard that most dreaded of all sounds in the high Alps, that rending, booming crack! The Last Trump! Avalanche!

The ground shook violently under Bond's skis and the swelling rumble came down to him like the noise of express trains roaring through a hundred tunnels. God Almighty, now he really had had it! What was the rule? Point the skis straight downhill! Try and race it! Bond pointed his skis down toward the treeline, got down in his ugly crouch and shot, his skis screaming, into white space.

Keep forward, you bastard! Get your hands way in front of you! The wind of his speed was building up into a great wall in front of him, trying to knock him off balance. Behind him, the giant roar of the mountain seemed to be gaining. Other, smaller cracks sounded high up among the crags. The whole bloody mountain was on the move! If he beat the gigantic mass of hurtling snow to the treeline, what comfort would he find there? Certainly no protection until he was deep in the wood. The avalanche would snap perhaps the first hundred yards of firs down like matchsticks. Bond used his brain and veered slightly left-handed. The opening, the glade cut for the Black Run, would surely be somewhere below the last flag he had been aiming for. If it wasn't, he was a dead duck!

Now the wild schuss was coming to an end. The trees were rushing toward him. Was there a break in the bloody black line of them? Yes! But more to the left. Bond veered, dropping his speed, gratefully, but with his ears strained to gauge the range of the thunder behind and above him. It couldn't be far from him. The shudder in the ground had greatly increased and a lot of the stuff would also find the hole through the trees, funnel itself in and pursue him even down there! Yes! There was the flag! Bond hurtled into a right-hand Christie just as, to his left, he heard the first trees come crashing down with the noise of a hundred monster firecrackers being pulled--Christmas firecrackers! Bond flung himself straight down the wide white glade between the trees. But he could hear that he was losing! The crashing of the trees was coming closer. The first froth of the white tide couldn't be far behind his heels! What did one do when the avalanche hit? There was only one rule. Get your hands to your boots and grip your ankles. Then, if you were buried, there was some hope of undoing your skis, being able, perhaps, to burrow your way to the surface--if you knew in your tomb where the surface lay! If you couldn't go down like a ball, you would end up immovable, a buried tangle of sticks and skis at all angles. Thank God the opening at the end of the glade, the shimmer of the last, easily sloping fields before the finish, was showing up! The crackling roar behind him was getting louder! How high would the wall of snow be? Fifty feet? A hundred? Bond reached the end of the glade and hurled himself into another right-hand Christie. It was his last hope, to get below the wide belt of trees and pray that the avalanche wouldn't mow down the lot of them. To stay in the path of the roaring monster at his heels would be suicide!

The Christie came off, but Bond's right ski snarled a root or a sapling and he felt himself flying through space. He landed with a crash and lay gasping, all the wind knocked out of him. Now he was done for! Not even enough strength to get his hands to his ankles! A tremendous buffet of wind hit him and a small snowstorm covered him. The ground shook wildly and a deep crashing roar filled his ears. And then it had passed him and given way to a slow, heavy rumble. Bond brushed the snow out of his eyes and got unsteadily to his feet, both skis loose, his goggles gone. Only a cricket pitch away, a great torrent of snow, perhaps 20 feet high, was majestically pouring out of the wood and down into the meadows. Its much higher, tumbling snout, tossing huge crags of broken snow around it, was already a hundred yards ahead and still going fast. But, where Bond stood, it was now silent and peaceful except for the machine-gun-fire crackling of the trees as they went down in the wood that had finally protected him. The crackling was getting nearer! No time to hang about! But Bond took off one sodden glove and dug into his trouser pocket. If ever he needed a drink it was now! He tilted the little flask down his throat, emptied it and threw the bottle away. Happy Christmas! he said to himself, and bent to his bindings.

He got to his feet and, rather lightheaded but with the wonderful glow of the Enzian in his stomach, started on the last mile of finishing schuss across the meadows to the right, away from the still hurtling river of snow. Blast! There was a fence across the bottom of the meadows! He would have to take the normal outlet for the runs beside the cable station. It looked all right. There was no sign of the gondola, but he could now hear the song of the cables. Had the downcoming car reversed back up to Piz Gloria, assuming him to have been killed by the avalanche? There was a large black saloon car in the forecourt to the cable station, and lights on in the station, but otherwise no sign of life. Well, it was his only way to get off the run and onto the road that was his objective. Bond schussed easily downward, resting his limbs, getting his breath back.

The sharp crack of a heavy-caliber pistol and the phut as the bullet hit the snow beside him pulled him together. He jinked sideways and glanced quickly up to the right, where the shot had come from. The gun blazed again. A man on skis was coming fast after him. One of the guides! Of course! He would have taken the Red Run. Had the other followed Bond on the Black? Bond hoped so, gave a deep sigh of anger and put on all the speed he could, crouching low and jinking occasionally to spoil the man's aim. The single shots kept on coming. It was going to be a narrow shave who got to the end of the run first!

Bond studied the finishing point that was now coming at him fast. There was a wide break in the fence to let the skiers through, a large parking place in front of the cable station and then the low embankment that protected the main line of the Rhätische Bahn up to Pontresina and the Bernina Pass. On the other side of the rails the railway embankment dropped into the road from Pontresina to Samaden, the junction for St. Moritz, perhaps two miles down the valley.

Another shot kicked up the snow in front of him. That was six that had gone. With any luck the man's pistol was empty. But that wouldn't help much. There was no stuffing left in Bond for a fight.

Now a great blaze of light showed coming up the railway line, and, before it was hidden by the cable station, Bond identified an express and could just hear the thudding of its electrodiesels. By God, it would just about be passing the cable station as he wanted to get across the track! Could he make it--take a run at the low embankment and clear it and the lines before the train got there? It was his only hope! Bond dug in with his sticks to get on extra speed. Hell! A man had got out of the black car and was crouching, aiming at him. Bond jinked and jinked again as fire bloomed from the man's hand. But now Bond way on top of him. He thrust hard with the rapier point of a ski stick and felt it go through clothing. The man gave a scream and went down. The guide, now only yards behind, yelled something. The great yellow eye of the diesel glared down the tracks, and Bond caught a sideways glimpse of a huge red snow fan (continued on page 140)Her Majesty's Secret Service(continued from page 136) below the headlight that was fountaining the new snow to right and left of the engine in two white wings. Now! He flashed across the parking place, heading straight at the mound of the embankment and, as he hit, dug both his sticks in to get his skis off the ground, and hurled himself forward into the air. There was a brief glimpse of steel rails below, a tremendous thudding in his ears and a ferocious blast, only yards away, from the train's siren. Then he crashed onto the icy road, tried to stop, failed and fetched up in an almighty skid against the hard snow wall on the other side. As he did so, there came a terrible scream from behind him, a loud splintering of wood and the screech of the train's brakes being applied.

At the same time, the spray from the snow fan, that had now reached Bond, turned pink!

Bond wiped some of it off his face and looked at it. His stomach turned. God! The man had tried to follow him, had been too late or had missed his jump, and had been caught by the murderous blades of the snow fan! Mincemeat! Bond dug a handful of snow off the bank and wiped it over his face and hair. He rubbed more of it down his sweater. He suddenly realized that people were pulling down the windows in the brilliantly lit train above him. Others had got down on the line. Bond pulled himself together and punted off down the black ice of the road. Shouts followed him -- the angry bawls of Swiss citizens. Bond edged his skis a little against the camber of the road and kept going. Ahead of him, down the black gulch of the road, in his mind's eye, the huge red propeller whirred, sucking him into its steel whirlpool. Bond, close to delirium, slithered on toward its bloody, beckoning vortex.

• • •

Bond, a gray-faced, lunging automaton, somehow stayed upright on the two miles of treacherous Langlauf down the gentle slope to Samaden. Once a passing car, its snow chains clattering, forced him into the bank. He leaned against the comforting soft snow for a moment, the breath sobbing in his throat. Then he drove himself on again. He had got so far, done so well! Only a few more hundred yards to the lights of the darling, straggling little paradise of people and shelter! The slender campanile of the village church was floodlit and there was a great warm lake of light on the left of the twinkling group of houses. The strains of a waltz came over the still, frozen air. The skating rink! A Christmas Eve skaters' ball. That was the place for him! Crowds! Gaiety! Confusion! Somewhere to lose himself from the double hunt that would now be on -- by Spectre and the Swiss police, the cops and the robbers hand in hand!

Bond's skis hit a pile of horse's dung from some merrymaker's sleigh. He lurched drunkenly into the snow wall of the road and righted himself, cursing feebly. Come on! Pull yourself together! Look respectable! Well, you needn't look too respectable. After all, it's Christmas Eve. Here were the first houses. The noise of accordion music, deliriously nostalgic, came from a Gasthaus with a beautiful iron sign over its door. Now there was a twisty, uphill bit -- the road to St. Moritz. Bond shuffled up it, placing his sticks carefully. He ran a hand through his matted hair and pulled the sweat-soaked handkerchief down to his neck, tucking the ends into his shirt collar. The music lilted down toward him from the great pool of light over the skating rink. Bond pulled himself a little more upright. There were a lot of cars drawn up, skis stuck in mounds of snow, luges and toboggans, festoons of paper streamers, a big notice in three languages across the entrance: "Grand Christmas Eve Ball! Fancy Dress! Entrance 2 Francs! Bring all your friends! Hooray!"

Bond dug in his sticks and bent down to unlatch his skis. He fell over sideways. If only he could just lie there, go to sleep on the hard, trodden snow that felt like swansdown! He gave a small groan and heaved himself gingerly into a crouch. The bindings were frozen solid, caked, like his boots, with ice. He got one of his sticks and hacked feebly at the metal and tried again. At last the latches sprang and the thongs were off. Where to put the bloody things, hide their brilliant red markings? He lugged them down the trodden path toward the entrance, gay with fairy lights, shoved the skis and the sticks under a big saloon car, and staggered on. The man at the ticket table was as drunk as Bond seemed. He looked up blearily: "Zwei Franken. Two francs. Deux francs." The routine incantation was slurred into one portmanteau word. Bond held onto the table, put down the coins and got his ticket. The man's eyes focused. "The fancy dress, the travestie, it is obligatoire." He reached into a box by his side and threw a black-and-white domino mask on the table. "One franc." He gave a lopsided smile. "Now you are the gangster, the spy. Yes?"

"Yeah, that's right." Bond paid and put on the mask. He reluctantly let go of the table and wove through the entrance. There were raised tiers of wooden benches round the big square rink. Thank God for a chance to sit down! There was an empty seat on the aisle in the bottom row at rink level. Bond stumbled down the wooden steps and fell into it. He righted himself, said "Sorry," and put his head in his hands. The girl beside him, part of a group of harlequins, Wild Westerners and pirates, drew her spangled skirt away, whispered something to her neighbor. Bond didn't care. They wouldn't throw him out on a night like this. Through the loud-speakers the violins sobbed into The Skaters' Waltz. Above them the voice of the m.c. called, "Last dance, ladies and gentlemen. And then all out onto the rink and join hands for the grand finale. Only 10 minutes to go to midnight! Last dance, ladies and gentlemen. Last dance!" There was a rattle of applause. People laughed excitedly.

God in Heaven! thought Bond feebly. Now this! Won't anybody leave me alone? He fell asleep.

Hours later he felt his shoulder being shaken. "Onto the rink, sir. Please. All onto the rink for the grand finale. Only a minute to go." A man in purple-and-gold uniform was standing beside him, looking down impatiently.

"Go away," said Bond dully. Then some inner voice told him not to make a scene, not to be conspicuous. He struggled to his feet, made the few steps to the rink, somehow stood upright. His head lowered, like a wounded bull, he looked to left and right, saw a gap in the human chain round the rink and slid gingerly toward it. A hand was held out to him and he grasped it thankfully. On the other side, someone else was trying to get hold of his free hand. And then there came a diversion. From right across the rink, a girl in a short black skating skirt topped by a shocking-pink fur-lined parka sped like an arrow across the ice and came to a crash stop in front of Bond. Bond felt the ice particles hit his legs. He looked up. It was a face he recognized -- those brilliant blue eyes, the look of authority now subdued beneath golden sunburn and a brilliant smile of excitement. Who in hell?

The girl slipped in beside him, seized his right hand in her left, joined up on her right. "James -- " it was a thrilling whisper--"oh, James. It's me! Tracy! What's the matter with you? Where have you come from?"

"Tracy," said Bond dully. "Tracy. Hold on to me. I'm in bad shape. Tell you later."

Then Auld Lang Syne began and everyone swung linked hands in unison to the music.

• • •

Bond had no idea how he managed to stay upright, but at last it was over and everyone cheered and broke up into pairs and groups.

Tracy got her arm under his. Bond pulled himself together. He said hoarsely, "Mix with the crowd, Tracy. Got to get away from here. People after me." A sudden hope came to him. "Got your car?"

"Yes, darling. Everything'll be all right. Just hang on to me. Are people waiting for you outside?"

"Could be. Watch out for a big black Mercedes. There may be shooting. Better stay away from me. I can make it. Where's the car?"

"Down the road to the right. But don't be silly. Here, I've got an idea. You get into this parka." She ran the zipper down and stripped it off. "It'll be a tight fit. Here, put your arm into this sleeve."

"But you'll get cold."

"Do as I tell you. I've got a sweater and plenty on underneath. Now the other arm. That's right." She pulled up the zipper. "Darling James, you look sweet."

The fur of the parka smelt of Guerlain's "Ode." It took Bond back to Royale. What a girl! The thought of her, of having an ally, of not being on his own, of being away from that bloody mountain, revived Bond. He held her hand and followed her through the crowd that was now streaming toward the exit. This was going to be a bad moment! Whether or not that cable car had come on down the mountain, by now Blofeld would have had time to get one down full of Spectre men. Bond had been seen from the train, would be known to have made for Samaden. By now they would have covered the railway station. They would expect him to try and hide in a crowd. Perhaps the drunken man at the entrance had remembered him. If that saloon moved off and revealed the red-arrowed skis, it would be a cert. Bond let go of the girl's hand and slipped the shattered Rolex back over the knuckles of his right hand. He had gathered enough strength, mostly from the girl, to have one more bash at them!

She looked at him. "What are you doing?"

He took her hand again. "Nothing."

They were getting near the exit. Bond peered through the slits in his mask. Yes, by God! Two of the thugs were standing beside the ticket man watching the throng with deadly concentration. On the far side of the road stood the black Mercedes, petrol vapor curling up from its exhaust. No escape. There was only bluff. Bond put his arm round Tracy's neck and whispered, "Kiss me all the way past the ticket table. They're there, but I think we can make it."

She flung an arm over his shoulder and drew him to her. "How did you know that that's what I've been waiting for?" Her lips crushed down sideways on his and, in a tide of laughing, singing people, they were through and on the street.

They turned, still linked, down the road. Yes! There was the darling little white car!

And then the horn on the Mercedes began sounding urgently. Bond's gait, or perhaps his old-fashioned ski trousers, had given him away to the man in the car!

"Quick, darling!" said Bond urgently.

The girl threw herself in under the wheel, pressed the starter and the car was moving as Bond scrambled in through the opposite door. Bond looked back. Through the rear window he could see the two men standing in the road. They would not shoot with so many witnesses about. Now they ran to the Mercedes. Thank God it was pointing up the hill toward St. Moritz! And then Tracy had done a controlled skid round the S bend in the village and they were on the main road that Bond had staggered down half-an-hour before.

It would be five minutes at least before the Mercedes could turn and get after them. The girl was going like hell, but there was traffic on the road -- tinkling sleighs full of fur-wrapped merrymakers on their way back to Pontresina, an occasional car, its snow chains rattling. She drove on her brakes and her horn, the same triple wind horn that sounded the high discord Bond remembered so well. Bond said, "You're an angel, Tracy. But take it easy. We don't want to end up in the ditch."

The girl glanced sideways at him and laughed with pleasure. "That sounds as if you were feeling better. But I cannot see you. Now you can take off that silly mask and my parka. In a minute the heat will come on and you will be roasted. And I would like to see you as I remember you. But you are pleased with me?"

Life was beginning to come back into Bond. It was so wonderful to be in this little car with this marvelous girl. The memory of the dreadful mountain, of all that he had been through, was receding. Now there was hope again, after so much dread and despair. He could feel the tensions uncoiling in his stomach. He said, "I'll tell you if I'm pleased when we get to Zürich. Can you make it? It's a hell of a way to spend Christmas." He wound down the window and threw the domino mask out, stripped off the parka and draped it over her shoulders. The big sign for the main road into the valley came up. He said, "Left here, Tracy. Filisur and then Coire."

She took the turning, in Bond's estimation, dangerously fast. She went into a skid that Bond swore was going to be uncontrolled. But, even on the black ice of the road, she got out of it and motored blithely on. Bond said, "For God's sake, Tracy! How in hell did you manage that? You haven't even got chains on."

She laughed, pleased at the awe in his voice. "Dunlop Rally studs on all the tires. They're only supposed to be for rally drivers, but I managed to wangle a set out of them. Don't worry. Just sit back and enjoy the drive."

There was something entirely new in the girl's voice, a lilt and happiness that had certainly not been there at Royale. Bond turned and looked at her carefully for the first time. Yes, she was somehow a new woman, radiating health and a kind of inner glow. The tumbled fair hair glittered with vitality and the half-open, beautiful lips seemed always to be on the verge of a smile.

"Satisfied?"

"You look absolutely wonderful. But now, for God's sake, tell me how you happened to be at Samaden. It was a bloody miracle. It saved my life."

"All right. But then you tell. I've never seen a man look so dead on his feet. I couldn't believe my eyes. I thought you must be plastered." She gave him a quick glance. "You still look pretty bad. Here--" she leaned forward to the dashboard-- "I'll switch on the blower. Get you properly warmed up." She paused. "Well, my bit of the story's quite simple, really. Papa rang me up one day from Marseilles to find out how I was. He asked if I had seen you and seemed very annoyed when he heard I hadn't. He practically ordered me to go and find you." She glanced at him. "He's quite taken with you, you know. Anyway, he said he had found out the address of a certain man you were looking for. He said he was sure that by now you would have found out that address, too. He said that, knowing you, I would find you somewhere close to this address. It was the Piz Gloria Club. He told me if I found you to tell you to watch your step, to look after yourself." She laughed. "How right he was! Well, so I left Davos, which had really put me on my feet again, like you said it would, and I came up to Samaden the day before yesterday. The Seilbahn wasn't running yesterday, so I was going to come up today to look for you. It was all as simple as that. Now you tell."

They had been keeping up a good speed down the sloping, winding road into the valley. Bond turned to look through the rear window. He swore under his breath. Perhaps a mile behind, twin lights were coming after them. The girl said, "I know. I've been watching in the mirror. I'm afraid they're gaining a little. Must be a good driver who knows the road. Probably got snow chains. But I think I can hold them. Now go on. What have you been up to?"

Bond gave her a garbled version. There was a big gangster up the mountain, living under a false name. He was wanted by the police in England. Bond was vaguely connected with the police, with the Ministry of Defense. (She snorted, "Don't try and fool me. I know you're in the Secret Service. Papa told me so." Bond said curtly, "Well, Papa's talking through his hat." She laughed knowingly.) Anyway, Bond continued, he had been sent out to make sure this was the man they wanted. He had found out that he was. But the man had become suspicious of Bond and Bond had had to get out quickly. He gave her a graphic account of the moonlit nightmare of the mountain, of the avalanche, of the man who had been killed by the train, of how he had got to Samaden, dead beat, and had tried to hide in the crowd on the skating rink. "And then," he ended lamely, "you turned up like a beautiful angel on skates, and here we are."

She thought the story over for a minute. Then she said calmly, "And now, my darling James, just tell me how many of them you killed. And tell me the truth."

"Why?"

"I'm just curious."

"You promise to keep this between you and me?"

She said enigmatically, "Of course. Everything's between you and me from now on."

"Well, there was the main guard at the so-called Club. That had to be done or I'd be dead myself by now. Then, I suppose, one got caught by the avalanche. Then, at the bottom, one of them shot at me and I had to spear him with my ski stick--self-defense. I don't know how badly he's hurt. And then there was the man killed by the train. He'd fired six shots at me. And, anyway, it was his own fault. Let's say three and a half got themselves killed one way or another."

"How many are left?"

"What are you getting at?"

"I just want to know. Trust me."

"Well, I think there were about 15 up there all told. So that leaves 11 and a half--plus the big man."

"And there are three in the car behind? Would they kill us if they caught us?"

"I'm afraid so. I haven't got any weapons. I'm sorry, Tracy, but I'm afraid you wouldn't have much chance either, being a witness and a sort of accomplice of mine. These people think I'm pretty bad news for them."

"And you are?"

"Yes. From now on, I'm the worst."

"Well, I've got pretty bad news for you. They're gaining on us and I've only got a couple of gallons left in the tank. We'll have to stop in Filisur. There won't be a garage open and it'll mean waking someone up. Can't hope to do it under 10 minutes and they'll have us. You'll have to think up something clever."

There was a ravine and an S turn over a bridge. They were coming out of the first curve over the bridge. Lights blazed at them from across the ravine. There was half a mile between the two cars, but the range across the ravine was perhaps only 300 yards. Bond wasn't surprised to see the familiar blue flames flutter from the front of the car. Chips of granite from the overhang splattered down on the bonnet of the car. Then they were into the second half of the S bend and out of sight of their pursuers.

Now came a stretch of reconstruction work where there had been a landslide. There were big warning notices: "Achtung! Baustelle! Vorsichtig Fahren!" The broken road hugged the mountainside on the right. On the left was rickety fencing and then a precipice falling hundreds of feet down into a gorge with an ice-floed river. In the middle of the bad stretch, a huge red wooden arrow pointed right to a narrow track across a temporary bridge. Bond suddenly shouted "Stop!"

Tracy pulled up, her front wheels on the bridge. Bond tore open the door. "Get on! Wait for me round the next corner. It's the only chance."

Good girl! She got going without a word. Bond ran back the few yards to the big red arrow. It was held in the forks of two upright poles. Bond wrenched it off, swung it round so that it pointed to the left, toward the flimsy fence that closed off the yards of old road leading to the collapsed bridge. Bond tore at the fence, pulling the stakes out, flattening it. Glare showed round the corner behind him. He leaped across the temporary road into the shadow of the mountain, flattened himself against it, waited, holding his breath.

The Mercedes was coming faster than it should over the bumpy track, its chains clattering inside the mudguards. It made straight for the black opening to which the arrow now pointed. Bond caught a glimpse of white, strained faces and then the desperate scream of brakes as the driver saw the abyss in front of him. The car seemed almost to stop, but its front wheels must have been over the edge. It balanced for a moment on its iron belly and then slowly, slowly toppled and there was a first appalling crash as it hit the rubble beneath the old bridge. Then another crash and another. Bond ran forward past the lying arrow and looked down. Now the car was flying upside down through the air. It hit again and a fountain of sparks flashed from a rock ledge. Then, somersaulting, and with its lights somehow still blazing, it smashed on down into the gorge. It hit a last outcrop that knocked it sideways and, spinning laterally, but now with its lights out and only the glint of the moon on metal, it took the last great plunge into the iced-up river. A deep rumble echoed up from the gorge and there was the patter of rocks and stones following the wreckage. And then all was peaceful, moonlit silence.

Bond let out his breath in a quiet hiss between his clenched teeth. Then, mechanically, he straightened things out again, put up the remains of the fence, lifted the arrow and put it back facing to the right. Then he wiped his sweating hands down the side of his trousers and walked unsteadily down the road and round the next corner.

The little white car was there, pulled in to the side, with its lights out. Bond got in and slumped into his seat. Tracy said nothing but got the car going. The lights of Filisur appeared, warm and yellow in the valley below. She reached out a hand and held his tightly. "You've had enough for one day. Go to sleep. I'll get you to Zürich. Please do what I say."

Bond said nothing. He pressed her hand weakly, leaned his head against the door jamb and was instantly asleep.

He was out for the count.

• • •

In the gray dawn, Zürich airport was depressing and almost deserted, but, blessedly, there was a Swissair Caravelle, delayed by fog at London airport, waiting to take off for London. Bond parked Tracy in the restaurant and, regretfully forsaking the smell of coffee and fried eggs, went and bought himself a ticket, had his passport stamped by a sleepy official (he had half-expected to be stopped, but wasn't), and went to a telephone booth and shut himself in. He looked up Universal Export in the telephone book, and read underneath, as he had hoped, "Hauptvertreter Alexander Muir. Privat Wohnung" and the number. Bond glanced through the glass window at the clock in the departure hall. Six o'clock. Well, Muir would just have to take it.

He rang the number and, after minutes, a sleepy voice said. "Ja! Hier Muir."

Bond said, "Sorry, 410, but this is 007. I'm calling from the airport. This is bloody urgent so I'll have to take a chance on your line being bugged. Got a paper and pencil?"

The voice at the other end had grown brisker. "Hang on, 007. Yes, got it. Go ahead."

"First of all, I've got some bad news. Your Number Two has had it. Almost for sure. Can't give you any details over this line, but I'm off to London in about an hour -- Swissair Flight 110 -- and I'll signal the dope back straightaway. Could you put that on the teleprinter? Right. Now, I'm guessing that in the next day or so a party of 10 girls, British, will be coming in here by helicopter from the Engadine. Yellow Sudaviation Alouette. I'll be teleprinting their names back from London sometime today. My bet is they'll be flying to England, probably on different flights and perhaps to Prestwick and Gatwick as well as London airport, if you've any planes using those airports. Anyway, I guess they'll be dispersed. Now, I think it may be very important to tell London their flight numbers and E.T.A. Rather a big job, but I'll get you authority in a few hours to use men from Berne and Geneva to lend a hand. Got it? Right. Now I'm pretty certain you're blown. Remember the old Operation Bedlam that's just been canceled? Well, it's him and he's got radio and he'll probably have guessed I'd be contacting you this morning. Just take a look out of the window and see if there's any sign of watchers. He's certainly got his men in Zürich."

"Christ, what a shambles!" The voice at the other end was tight with tension. "Hang on." There was a pause. Bond could visualize Muir, whom he didn't know except as a number, going over to the window, carefully drawing aside the curtain. Muir came back on the wire. "Looks damn like it. There's a black Porsche across the road. Two men in it. I'll get my friends in the Sécurité to chase them away."

Bond said, "Be careful how you go about it. My guess is that our man has got a pretty good fix in with the police. Anyway, put all this on the telex to M personally, would you? Ciphered, of course. And tell him if I get back in one piece I must see him today, with 501 [the Chief Scientific Officer to the Service] and if possible with someone in the same line of business from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. Sounds daft, but there it is. It's going to upset their paper hats and Christmas pudding, but I can't help that. Can you manage all that? Good lad. Any questions?"

"Sure I oughtn't to come out to the airport and get some more about my Number Two? He was tailing one of Redland's men. Chap's been buying some pretty odd stuff from the local rep. of Badische Anilin. Number Two thought it seemed damned fishy. Didn't tell me what the stuff was. Just thought he'd better see where it was being delivered to."

"I thought it must be some kind of a spiel like that. No. You stay away from me. I'm hot as a pistol, going to be hotter later in the day when they find a certain Mercedes at the bottom of a precipice. I'll get off the line now. Sorry to have wrecked your Christmas. 'Bye."

Bond put down the receiver and went up to the restaurant. Tracy had been watching the door. Her face lit up when she saw him. He sat down very close to her and took her hand, a typical airport farewell couple. He ordered plenty of scrambled eggs and coffee. "It's all right, Tracy. I've fixed everything at my end. But now about you. That car of yours is going to be bad news. There'll be people who'll have seen you drive away with the Mercedes on your tail. There always are, even at midnight on Christmas Eve. And the big man on top of the mountain has got his men down here, too. You'd better finish your breakfast and get the hell on over the frontier. Which is the nearest?"

"Schaffhausen or Konstanz, I suppose, but -- " she pleaded -- "James, do I have to leave you now? It's been so long waiting for you. And I have done well, haven't I? Why do you want to punish me?" Tears, that would never have been there in the Royale days, sparkled in her eyes. She wiped them angrily away with the back of her hand.

Bond suddenly thought, Hell! I'll never find another girl like this one. She's got everything I've ever looked for in a woman. She's beautiful, in bed and out. She's adventurous, brave, resourceful. She's exciting always. She seems to love me. She'd let me go on with my life. She's a lone girl, not cluttered up with friends, relations, belongings. Above all, she needs me. It'll be someone for me to look after. I'm fed up with all these untidy, casual affairs that leave me with a bad conscience. I wouldn't mind having children. I've got no social background into which she would or wouldn't fit. We're two of a pair, really. Why not make it for always?

Bond found his voice saying those words that he had never said in his life before, never expected to say.

"Tracy. I love you. Will you marry me?"

She turned very pale. She looked at him wonderingly. Her lips trembled. "You mean that?"

"Yes, I mean it. With all my heart."

She took her hand away from his and put her face in her hands. When she removed them she was smiling. "I'm sorry, James. It's so much what I've been dreaming of. It came as a shock. But yes. Yes, of course I'll marry you. And I won't be silly about it. I won't make a scene. Just kiss me once and I'll be going." She looked seriously at him, at every detail of his face. Then she leaned forward and they kissed.

She got up briskly. "I suppose I've got to get used to doing what you say. I'll drive to Munich. To the Vier Jahreszeiten. It's my favorite hotel in the world. I'll wait for you there. They know me. They'll take me in without any luggage. Everything's at Samaden. I'll just have to send out for a toothbrush and stay in bed for two days until I can go out and get some things. You'll telephone me? Talk to me? When can we get married? I must tell Papa. He'll be terribly excited."

"Let's get married in Munich. At the Consulate. I've got a kind of diplomatic immunity. I can get the papers through quickly. Then we can be married again in an English church, or Scottish rather. That's where I come from. I'll call you up tonight and tomorrow. I'll get to you just as soon as I can. I've got to finish this business first."

"You promise you won't get hurt?"

Bond smiled. "I wouldn't think of it. For once I'll run away if someone starts any shooting."

"All right then." She looked at him carefully again. "It's time you took off that red handkerchief. I suppose you realize it's bitten to ribbons. Give it to me. I'll mend it."

Bond undid the red bandana from round his neck. It was a dark, sweat-soaked rag. And she was right. Two corners of it were in shreds. He must have got them between his teeth and chewed on them when the going was bad down the mountain. He couldn't remember having done so. He gave it to her.

She took it and, without looking back, walked straight out of the restaurant and down the stairs toward the exit.

Bond sat down. His breakfast came and he began eating mechanically. What had he done? What in hell had he done? But the only answer was a feeling of tremendous warmth and relief and excitement. James and Tracy Bond! Commander and Mrs. Bond! How utterly, utterly extraordinary!

The voice of the Tannoy said, "Attention, please. Passengers on Swissair Flight Number 110 for London, please assemble at Gate Number 2. Swissair Flight Number 110 for London. Passengers to Gate Number 2, please."

Bond stubbed out his cigarette, gave a quick glance round their trysting place to fix its banality in his mind, and walked to the door, leaving the fragments of his old life torn up amidst the debris of an airport breakfast.

• • •

The Caravelle hit the runway and there came the roar of jet deflection, and then they were trundling over the Tarmac in a light drizzle. Bond suddenly realized that he had no luggage, that he could go straight to Passport Control and then out and back to his flat to change out of these ridiculous skiing clothes that stank of sweat. Would there be a car from the pool for him? There was, with Miss Mary Goodnight sitting beside the driver.

"My God, Mary, this is the hell of a way to spend your Christmas! This is far beyond the line of duty. Anyway, get in the back and tell me why you're not stirring the plum pudding or going to church or something."

She climbed into the back seat and he followed. She said, "You don't seem to know much about Christmas. You make plum puddings at least two months before and let them sort of settle and mature. And church isn't till 11." She glanced at him. "Actually, I came to see how you were. I gather you've been in trouble again. You certainly look pretty ghastly. Don't you own a comb? And you haven't shaved. You look like a pirate. And --" she wrinkled her nose -- "when did you last have a bath? I wonder they let you out of the airport. You ought to be in quarantine."

Bond laughed. "Winter sports are very strenuous -- all that snowballing and tobogganing. Matter of fact, I was at a Christmas Eve fancy-dress party last night. Kept me up till all hours."

"In those great clodhopping boots? I don't believe you."

"Well, sucks to you! It was on a skating rink. But seriously, Mary, tell me the score. Why this V.I.P. treatment?"

"M. You're to check with H.Q. first and then go down to lunch with him at Quarterdeck. Then, after lunch, he's having these men you wanted brought down for a conference. Everything top priority. So I thought I'd better stand by, too. As you're wrecking so many other people's Christmases, I thought I might as well throw mine on the slag heap with the others. Actually, if you want to know, I was only having lunch with an aunt. And I loathe turkey and plum pudding. Anyway, I just didn't want to miss the fun and when the Duty Officer got on to me about an hour ago and told me there was a major flap, I asked him to tell the car to pick me up on the way to the airport."

Bond said seriously, "Well, you're a damned-good girl. As a matter of fact, it's going to be the hell of a rush getting down the bare bones of a report. And I've got something for the lab to do. Will there be someone there?"

"Of course there will. You know M insists on a skeleton staff in every Section, Christmas Day or not. But seriously, James. Have you been in trouble? You really do look awful."

"Oh, somewhat. You'll get the photo as I dictate." The car drew up outside Bond's flat. "Now be an angel and stir up May while I clean myself up and get out of these bloody clothes. Get her to brew me plenty of black coffee and to pour two jiggers of our best brandy into the pot. You ask May for what you like. She might even have some plum pudding. Now then, it's 9:30. Be a good girl and call the Duty Officer and say OK to M's orders and that we'll be along by 10:30. And get him to ask the lab to stand by in half an hour." Bond took his passport out of his hip pocket. "Then give this to the driver and ask him to get the hell over and give it to the Duty Officer personally. Tell the D.O. --" Bond turned down the corner of a page -- "to tell the lab that the ink used is -- er -- homemade. All it needs is exposure to heat. They'll understand. Got that? Good girl. Now come on and we'll get May going." Bond went up the steps and rang two shorts and a long on the bell.

• • •

When Bond got to his desk a few minutes after 10:30, feeling back to nine-tenths human, he found a folder on his desk with the red star in the top right corner that meant Top Secret. It contained his passport and a dozen copies of blown-up photostats of its page 21. The list of girls' names was faint but legible. There was also a note marked "Personal." Bond opened it. He laughed. It just said, "The ink showed traces of an excess of uric acid. This is often due to a superabundancy of alcohol in the blood stream. You have been warned!" There was no signature. So the Christmas spirit had permeated even into the solemn crevices of one of the most secret Sections in the building! Bond crumpled the paper and then, thinking of Mary Goodnight's susceptibilities, more prudently burned it with his lighter.

She came in and sat down with her shorthand book. Bond said, "Now this is only a first draft, Mary, and it's got to be fast. So don't mind about mistakes. M'll understand. We've got about an hour and a half if I'm to get down to Windsor by lunchtime. Think you can manage it? All right then, here goes. 'Top Secret. Personal to M. As instructed, on December 22nd I arrived at Zürich Central Airport at 1330 by Swissair to make first contact in connection with Operation "Corona"...'"

• • •

"Now then." M settled back. "What the devil have you been up to?" The gray eyes regarded Bond keenly. "Looks as if you haven't been getting much sleep. Pretty gay, these winter sports places, they tell me."

Bond smiled. He reached into his inside pocket and took out the pinned sheets of paper. "This one provided plenty of miscellaneous entertainment, sir. Perhaps you'd like to have a look at my report first. 'Fraid it's only a draft. There wasn't much time. But I can fill in anything that isn't clear."

M reached across for the papers, adjusted his spectacles, and began reading.

Soft rain scratched at the windows. A big log fell in the grate. The silence was soft and comfortable. Bond looked round the walls at M's treasured collection of naval prints. Everywhere there were mountainous seas, crashing cannon, bellying sails, tattered battle pennants -- the fury of ancient engagements, the memories of ancient enemies, the French, the Dutch, the Spaniards, even the Americans. All gone, all friends now with one another. Not a sign of the enemies of today. Who was backing Blofeld, for instance, in the inscrutable conspiracy in which he was now certainly engaged? The Russians? The Chinese? Or was it an independent job, as Thunderball had been? And what was the conspiracy? What was the job for the protection of which six or seven of Blofeld's men had died within less than a week? Would M read anything into the evidence? Would the experts who were coming that afternoon? Bond lifted his left wrist. Remembered that he no longer had a watch. That he would certainly be allowed on expenses. He would get another one as soon as the shops opened after Boxing Day. Another Rolex? Probably. They were on the heavy side, but they worked. And at least you could see the time in the dark with those big phosphorus numerals. Somewhere in the hall, a clock struck the half-hour. 1:30. Twelve hours before, he must have just set up the trap that killed the three men in the Mercedes. Self-defense, but the hell of a way to celebrate Christmas!

M threw the papers down on his desk. His pipe had gone out and he now slowly lit it again. He tossed the spent match accurately over his shoulder into the fire. He put his hands flat on the desk and said -- and there was an unusual kindness in his voice -- "Well, you werepretty lucky to get out of that one, James. Didn't know you could ski."

"I only just managed to stay upright, sir. Wouldn't like to try it again."

"No. And I see you say you can't come to any conclusions about what Blofeld is up to."

"That's right, sir. Haven't got a clue."

"Well, nor have I. I just don't understand any part of it. Perhaps the professors'll help us out this afternoon. You're absolutely sure of him, are you? He certainly seems to have done a good job on his face and stomach. Better set him up on the Identicast when you get back this evening. We'll have a look at him and get the views of the medical gentry."

"I think it must be him, sir. I was really getting the authentic smell of him on the last day -- yesterday, that is. It seems a long time ago already."

"You were lucky to run into this girl. Who is she? Some old flame of yours?" M's mouth turned down at the corners.

"More or less, sir. She came into my report on the first news we got that Blofeld was in Switzerland. Daughter of this man Draco, head of the Union Corse. Her mother was an English governess."

"Hm. Interesting breeding. Now then. Time for lunch. I told Hammond we weren't to be disturbed." M got up and pressed the bell by the fireplace. "'Fraid we've got to go through the turkey-and-plum-pudding routine. Mrs. Hammond's been brooding over her pots and pans for weeks. Damned sentimental rubbish."

Hammond appeared at the door, and Bond followed M through and into the small dining room beyond the hall whose walls glittered with M's hobby, the evolution of the naval cutlass. They sat down. M said, with mock ferocity, to Hammond, "All right, Chief Petty Officer Hammond. Do your worst." And then, with real vehemence, "What in hell are those things doing here?" He pointed at the center of the table.

"Crackers, sir," said Hammond stolidly. "Mrs. Hammond thought that seeing as you have company..."

"Throw them out. Give 'em to the school children. I'll go so far with Mrs. Hammond, but I'm damned if I'm going to have my dining room turned into a nursery."

Hammond smiled. He said, "Aye, aye, sir," gathered up the shimmering crackers and departed.

Bond was aching for a drink. He got a small glass of very old marsala and most of a bottle of very bad Algerian wine.

At last the plum pudding arrived, flaming traditionally. Mrs. Hammond had implanted several cheap silver gewgaws in it and M nearly broke a tooth on the miniature horseshoe. Bond got the bachelor's button. He thought of Tracy. It should have been the ring!

• • •

It was three o'clock. A car's wheels scrunched on the gravel outside. Dusk was already creeping into the room. M got up and switched on the lights and Bond arranged two more chairs up against the desk. M said, "That'll be 501. You'll have come across him. Head of the Scientific Research Section. And a man called Franklin from the Ministry of Agriculture. 501 says he's the top on his subject--Pest Control. Don't know why Ag. and Fish. chose to send him in particular, but the Minister told me they've got a bit of trouble on their hands, wouldn't tell even me what it is, and they think you may have run into something pretty big. We'll let them have a look at your report and see what they make of it. All right?"

"Yes, sir."

The door opened and the two men came in.

Number 501 of the Secret Service, whose name, Bond remembered, was Leathers, was a big-boned, rangy man with the stoop and thick spectacles of the stage scientist. He had a pleasant, vague smile and no deference, only politeness, toward M. He was appropriately dressed in shaggy tweeds and his knitted woolen tie didn't cover his collar stud. The other man was small and brisk and keen-looking, with darting, amused eyes. As became a senior representative of a Ministry who had received his orders from his Minister in person and who knew nothing of Secret Services, he had put on a neat dark-blue pin stripe and a stiff white collar. His black shoes gleamed efficiently. So did the leather of his fat brief case. His greeting was reserved, neutral. He wasn't quite sure where he was or what this was all about. He was going to smell his way carefully in this business, be wary of what he said and how far he committed his Ministry. Of such, Bond reflected, is "Government."

When the appropriate greetings and apologies for disturbed Christmases had been made, and they were in their chairs, M said, "Mr. Franklin, if you'll forgive my saying so, everything you are going to see and hear in this room is subject to the Official Secrets Act. You will no doubt be in possession of many secret matters affecting your own Ministry. I would be grateful if you would respect those of the Ministry of Defense. May I ask you to discuss what you are about to hear only with your Minister personally?"

Mr. Franklin made a little bow of acquiescence. "My Minister has already instructed me accordingly. My particular duties in the Ministry have accustomed me to handling Top Secret matters. You need have no reservations in what you tell me. Now then--" the amused eyes rested on each of the other three in turn--"perhaps you can tell me what this is all about. I know practically nothing except that a man on top of an Alp is making efforts to improve our agriculture and livestock. Very decent of him. So why are we treating him as if he had stolen atomic secrets?"

"He did once, as a matter of fact," said M dryly. "I think the best course would be for you and Mr. Leathers to read the report of my representative here. It contains code numbers and other obscure references which need not concern you. The story tells itself without them." M handed Bond's report to 501. "Most of this will be new to you also. Perhaps you would like to read a page at a time and then pass them on to Mr. Franklin."

A long silence fell in the room. Bond looked at his fingernails and listened to the rain on the windowpanes and the soft noises of the fire. M sat hunched up, apparently in a doze. Across the table the sheets of paper rustled slowly. Bond lit a cigarette. The rasp of his Ronson caused M's eyes to open lazily and then close again. 501 passed across the last page and sat back. Franklin finished his reading, shuffled the pages together and stacked them neatly in front of him. He looked at Bond and smiled. "You're lucky to be here."

Bond smiled back but said nothing.

M turned to 501. "Well?"

501 took off his thick spectacles and polished them on a none-too-clean handkerchief. "I don't get the object of the exercise, sir. It seems perfectly above board--praiseworthy, in fact, if we didn't know what we do know about Blofeld. Technically, what he has done is this: He has obtained 10, or rather 11, counting the one that's left the place, suitable subjects for deep hypnosis. These are all simple girls from the country. It is significant that the one called Ruby had failed her G.C.E. twice. They seem to suffer, and there's no reason to believe that they don't, from certain fairly common forms of allergy. We don't know the origins of their allergies and these are immaterial. They are probably psychosomatic--the adverse reaction to birds is a very common one, as is the one brought on by cattle. The reactions to crops and plants are less common. Blofeld appears to be attempting cures of these allergies by hypnosis, and not only cures, but a pronounced affinity with the cause of the allergy in place of the previous repulsion. In the case of Ruby, for instance, she is told, in the words of the report, to 'love' chickens, to wish to 'improve their breed' and so forth. The mechanical means of the cure are, in practice, simple. In the twilight stage, on the edge of sleep--the sharp ringing of the bell would waken those who were already asleep--the use of the metronome exactly on the pulse beat, and the distant whirring noise, are both common hypnotic aids. The singsong, authoritative murmur is the usual voice of the hypnotist. We have no knowledge of what lectures these girls attended or what reading they did, but we can assume that these were merely additional means to influence the mind in the path desired by Blofeld. Now, there is plenty of medical evidence for the efficacy of hypnosis. There are well-authenticated cases of the successful treatment by these means of such stubborn disabilities as warts, certain types of asthma, bed-wetting, stammering, and even alcoholism, drug-taking and homosexual tendencies. Although the British Medical Association frowns officially on the practitioners of hypnosis, you would be surprised, sir, to know how many doctors themselves, as a last resort, particularly in cases of alcoholism, have private treatment from qualified hypnotists. But this is by the way. All I can contribute to this discussion is that Blofeld's ideas are not new and that they can be completely efficacious."

M nodded. "Thank you, Mr. Leathers. Now would you like to be unscientific and hazard any wild guesses that would contribute in any way to what you have told us?" M smiled briefly. "You will not be quoted, I can assure you."

501 ran a worried hand through his hair. "Well, sir, it may be nonsense, but a train of thought came to me as I read the report. This is a very expensive setup of Blofeld's. Whether his intentions are benign or malignant, and I must say that I think we can accept them as being malignant, who is paying for all this? How did he fall upon this particular field of research and find the finance for it? Well, sir, this may sound fanciful, looking for burglars under the bed, so to speak, but the leaders in this field, ever since Pavlov and his salivating dogs, have been the Russians. If you recall, sir, at the time of the first human orbiting of the earth by the Russians, I put in a report on the physiology of the astronaut Yuri Gagarin. I drew attention to the simple nature of this man, his equable temperament when faced with his hysterical welcome in London. This equability never failed him and, if you will remember, we kept him under discreet observation throughout his visit and on his subsequent tours abroad, at the request of the Atomic Energy authorities. That bland, smiling face, sir, those wide-apart, innocent eyes, the extreme psychological simplicity of the man, all added up, as I said in my report, to the perfect subject for hypnosis, and I hazarded the guess that, in the extremely complicated movements required of him in his space capsule, Gagarin was operating throughout in a state of deep hypnosis. All right, sir --" 501 made a throwaway gesture of his hand -- "my conclusions were officially regarded as fanciful. But, since you ask, I now repeat them, and I throw out the suggestion that the Power behind Blofeld in all this may well be the Russians." He turned to Bond. "Was there any sign of Russian inspiration or guidance at this Gloria place? Any Russians anywhere in the offing?"

"Well, there was this man, Captain Boris. I never saw him, but he was certainly a Russian. Otherwise, nothing I can think of except the three Spectre men who I'd guess were ex-smersh. But they seemed definitely staff men, what the Americans would call 'mechanics.' "

501 shrugged. He said to M, "Well, I'm afraid that's all I can contribute, sir. But, if you come to the conclusion that this is dirty business, for my money, this Captain Boris was either the paymaster or supervisor of the scheme and Blofeld the independent operator. It would fit in with the free-lance character of the old Spectre -- an independent gang working for whoever was willing to pay them."

"Perhaps you've got something there, Mr. Leathers," said M reflectively. "But what the devil's the object of the exercise?" He turned to Franklin. "Well now, Mr. Franklin, what do you think of all this?"

The man from Ag. and Fish. had lit a small, highly polished pipe. He kept it between his teeth and reached down for his brief case and took out some papers. From among them he extracted a black-and-white outline map of Britain and Eire and smoothed it down across the desk. The map was dotted with symbols, forests of them here, blank spaces there. He said, "This is a map showing the total agricultural and livestock resources of Britain and Eire, leaving out grassland and timber. Now, at my first sight of the report, I admit I was completely confused. As Mr. Leathers said, these experiments seem perfectly harmless -- more than that, to use his word, praiseworthy. But --" Franklin smiled --"you gentlemen are concerned with searching for the dark side of the moon. I adjusted my mind accordingly. The result was that I am filled with a very deep and terrible suspicion. Perhaps these black thoughts have entered my mind by a process of osmosis with the present company's way of looking at the world --" he looked deprecatingly at M -- "but I also have one piece of evidence which may be decisive. Excuse me, but there was one sheet of paper missing from the report -- the list of the girls and their addresses. Is that available?"

Bond took the photostat out of his inside pocket. "Sorry. I didn't want to clutter up the report too much." He slipped it across the table to Franklin.

Franklin ran his eyes down it. Then he said, and there was awe in his voice, "I've got it! I do believe I've got it!" He sat back heavily in his chair as if he couldn't believe what he had seen.

The three men watched him tensely, believing him, because of what was written on his face -- waiting for it.

Franklin took a red pencil out of his breast pocket and leaned over the map. Glancing from time to time at the list, he made a series of red circles at seemingly unrelated points across Britain and Eire, but Bond noticed that they covered 11 of the areas where the forests of symbols were at their densest. As he made the circles he commented, "Aberdeen -- Aberdeen Angus, Devon -- Red Poll, Lancashire -- poultry, Kent -- fruit, Shannon -- potatoes," until 10 red circles stood out on the map. Finally he poised his pencil over East Anglia and made a big cross. He looked up, said "Turkeys," and threw his pencil down.

In the silence that followed, M said, rather testily, "Well, Mr. Franklin, what have you in mind?"

Franklin reached over and pointed to the red circle he had made over East Anglia. "This was my first clue. The girl, Polly Tasker, who left this Gloria place over a month ago, came from somewhere round here where you'll see from the symbols that there's the greatest concentration of turkey farmers. She suffered from an allergy against turkeys. She came back inspired to improve the breed. Within a week of her return, we had the biggest outbreak of fowl pest affecting turkeys in the history of England. Fowl pest is a virus, by the way, highly infectious, with a mortality of 100 percent."

Leathers suddenly slapped his thigh. "By God, I think you've got it, Franklin! Go on!"

"Now --" Franklin turned to Bond -- "when this officer took a look into the laboratory up there he saw rack upon rack of test tubes containing what he describes as 'a cloudy liquid.' How would it be if those were viruses, fowl pest, anthrax, God knows what all? The report mentions that the laboratory was lit with a dim red light. That would be correct. Virus cultures suffer from exposure to bright light. And how would it be if before this Polly girl left she was given an aerosol spray of the right stuff and told that this was some kind of turkey elixir -- a tonic to make them grow fatter and healthier. Remember that stuff about 'improving the breed' in the hypnosis talk? And suppose she was told to go to the National Poultry Show at Olympia, perhaps even take a job for the meeting as a cleaner or something, and just casually spray this aerosol here and there among the prize birds. It wouldn't be bigger than one of those shaving-soap bombs. That'd be quite enough. She'd been told to keep it secret, that it was patent stuff. Perhaps even that she'd be given shares in the company if the tonic proved the success this man Blofeld claimed it would. It'd be quite easy to do. She'd just wander round the cages -- perhaps she was even given a special purse to carry the thing in -- lean up against the wire and psst! the job would be done. Easy as falling off a log. All right, if you'll go along with me so far, she was probably told to do the job on one of the last two days of the show, so that the effects wouldn't be seen too soon. Then, at the end of the show, all the prize birds are dispersed back to their owners all over England. And that's that! And --" he paused -- "mark you, that was that. Three million birds dead and still dying all over the place, and a great chunk of foreign currency coughed up by the Treasury to replace them."

Leathers, his face red with excitement, butted in. He swept his hand over the map. "And the other girls! All from the danger spots. All from the areas of greatest concentration. Local shows taking place all the time -- cattle, poultry, even potatoes -- Colorado beetle for that crop, I suppose, swine fever for the pigs. Golly!" There was reverence in Leathers' voice. "And it's so damned simple! All you'd need would be to keep the viruses at the right temperature for a while. They'd be instructed in that, the little darlings. And all the time they'd be sure they were being saints! Marvelous. I really must hand it to the man."

M said, "Am I right in thinking that you conclude that this man Blofeld is mounting Biological Warfare against this country?" He turned to Bond. He barked, "What do you think?"

"I'm afraid it fits, sir. The whole way along the line. We know the man. It fits him, too. Right up his street. And it doesn't even matter who's paying him. He can pay himself, make a fortune. All he has to do is go a bear of sterling or Gilt-Edged. If Mr. Franklin's right, our currency'll literally go through the floor -- and the country with it."

M got to his feet. He said, "All right, gentlemen. Mr. Franklin, will you tell your Minister what you've heard? It'll be up to him to tell the P.M. and the Cabinet as he thinks fit. I'll get on with the preventive measures, first of all through Sir Ronald Vallance of the C.I.D. We must pick up this Polly woman and get the others as they come into the country. They'll be gently treated. It's not their fault. Then we'll have to think what to do with Mister Blofeld." He turned to Bond. "Stay behind, would you?"

Goodbyes were said and M rang for Hammond to see the other two out. He then rang again. "Tea, please, Hammond." He turned to Bond. "Or rather have a whiskey and soda?"

"Whiskey, please, sir," said Bond with infinite relief.

"Rotgut," commented M. He walked over to the window and looked out at the darkness and rain.

Bond drew Franklin's map toward him and studied it. He reflected that he was learning quite a lot on this case -- about other people's businesses, other people's secrets, from the innards of the College of Arms to the innards of Ag. and Fish. Odd how this gigantic, many-branched tree had grown from one tiny seed in September -- a girl calling banco in a casino and not having the money to pay. And what about Bond's letter of resignation? That looked pretty silly now. He was up to his ears, as deeply as ever in his life before, in his old profession. And now a big mopping-up job would have to be done. And he would have to do it, or at any rate lead it, organize it. And Bond knew exactly what he was going to put to M when the tea and whiskey came. Only he could do the cleaning up. It was written in his stars!

Hammond came in with the tray and withdrew. M came back to his desk, gruffly told Bond to pour himself a whiskey, and himself took a vast cup, as big as a baby's chamber pot, of black tea without sugar or milk, and put it in front of him.

At length he said moodily, "This is a dirty business, James. But I'm afraid it makes sense. Better do something about it, I suppose." He reached for the red telephone with scrambler attachment that stood beside the black one on his desk and picked up the receiver. It was a direct line to that very private switchboard in Whitehall to which perhaps 50 people in all Britain have access. "Put me on to Sir Ronald Vallance, would you? Home number, I suppose." He reached out and took a deep gulp at his cup of tea and put the cup back on its saucer. Then, "That you, Vallance? M here. Sorry to disturb your afternoon nap." There was an audible explosion at the other end of the line! M smiled. "Reading a report on teenage prostitution? I'm ashamed of you. On Christmas Day, too. Well, scramble, would you?" M pressed down the large black button on the side of the cradle. "Right? Now I'm afraid this is top priority. Remember Blofeld and the Thunderball case? Well, he's up to his tricks again. Too long to explain now. You'll get my side of the report in the morning. And Ag. and Fish, are mixed up in it. Yes, of all people. Man called Franklin is your contact. One of their top pest-control men. Only him and his Minister. So would your chaps report to him, copy to me? I'm only dealing with the foreign side. Your friend 007's got the ball. Yes, same chap. He can fill you in with any extra detail you may need on the foreign angles. Now, the point is this. Even though it's Christmas and all that, could your chaps try at once and lay their hands on a certain girl, Polly Tasker, aged about 25, who lives in East Anglia? Yes, I know it's a hell of a big area, but she'll probably come from a respectable lower-middle-class family connected with turkey farming. Certainly find the family in the telephone book. Can't give you any description, but she's just been spending several weeks in Switzerland. Got back the last week in November. Don't be ridiculous! Of course you can manage it. And when you find her, take her into custody for importing fowl pest into the country. Yes, that's right." M spelled it out. "The stuff that's been killing all our turkeys." M muttered "Thank God!" away from the receiver. "No, I didn't say anything. Now, be kind to the girl. She didn't know what she was doing. And tell the parents it'll be all right. If you need a formal charge, you'll have to get one out of Franklin. Then tell Franklin when you've got her and he'll come down and ask her one or two simple questions. When he's got the answers, you can let her go. Right? But we've got to find that girl. You'll see why all right when you've read the report. Now then, next assignment. There are 10 girls of much the same type as this Polly Tasker who'll probably be flying from Zürich to England and Eire any day from tomorrow on. Each one has got to be held by the Customs at the port or airport of entry. 007 has a list of their names and fairly good descriptions. My people in Zürich may or may not be able to give us warning of their arrival. Is that all right? Yes, 007 will bring the list to Scotland Yard this evening. No, I can't tell you what it's all about. Too long a story. But have you ever heard of Biological Warfare? That's right. Anthrax and so on. Well, this is it. Yes. Blofeld again. I know. That's what I'm just going to talk to 007 about. Well now, Vallance, have you got all that? Fine." M listened. He smiled grimly. "And a Happy Christmas to you."

He put the receiver back and the scrambler button automatically clicked to Off. He looked across at Bond. He said, with a hint of weariness, "Well, that's taken care of this end. Vallance said it was about time we had this fellow Blofeld in die bag. I agree. And that's our job. And I don't for a moment think we're going to get any help from the Swiss. Even if we were to, they'd trample all over the case with their big boots for weeks before we saw any action. By that time the man would be in Peking or somewhere, cooking up something else." M looked straight at Bond. "Any ideas?"

It had come, as Bond knew it would. He took a deep pull at his whiskey and put the glass carefully down. He began talking, urgently, persuasively. As he expounded his plan, M's face sank deeper and deeper in gloom, and, when Bond concluded with "And that's the only way I can see, sir. All I need is two weeks' leave of absence. I could put in a letter of resignation if it would help." M turned in his chair and gazed deep into the dying flames of die log fire.

Bond sat quietly, waiting for the verdict. He hoped it would be yes, but he also hoped it would be no. That damned mountain! He never wanted to see the bloody thing again!

M turned back. The gray eyes were fierce. "All right, 007. Go ahead. I can't go to the P.M. about it. He'd refuse. But for God's sake bring it off. I don't mind being sacked, but we don't want to get the Government mixed up in another U-2 fiasco. Right?"

"I understand, sir. And I can have the two weeks' leave?"

"Yes."

• • •

With the Walther PPK in its leather holster warm against his stomach and his own name in his passport, James Bond looked out of the window at the English Channel sliding away beneath the belly of the Caravelle and felt more like his old, his pre--Sir Hilary Bray, self.

He glanced at the new Rolex on his wrist -- the shops were still shut and he had had to blarney it out of Q Branch -- and guessed they would be on time, six p.m. at Marseilles. It had been the hell of a rush to get off. He had worked until late in the night at H.Q. and all that morning, setting up the Identicast of Blofeld, checking details with Ronnie Vallance, fixing up the private, the Munich side of his life, chattering on the teleprinter to Station Z, even remembering to tell Mary Goodnight to get on to Sable Basilisk after the holiday and ask him to please do some kind of a job on the surnames of the 10 girls and please to have the family tree of Ruby Windsor embellished with gold capitals.

At midnight he had called Tracy in Munich and heard her darling, excited voice. "I've got the toothbrush, James," she had said, "and a pile of books. Tomorrow I'm going to go up the Zugspitze and sit in the sun so as to look pretty for you. Guess what I had for dinner tonight in my room! Krebsschwänze mit Dilltunke. That's crayfish tails with rice and a cream and dill sauce. And Rehrücken mit Saline. That's saddle of roebuck with a smitane sauce. I bet it was better than what you had."

"I had two ham sandwiches with stacks of mustard and half a pint of Harper's bourbon on the rocks. The bourbon was better than the ham. Now listen, Tracy, and stop blowing down the telephone."

"I was only sighing with love."

"Well, you must have got a Force Five sigh. Now listen. I'm posting my birth certificate to you tomorrow with a covering letter to the British Consul saying I want to get married to you as soon as possible. Look, you're going up to Force Ten! For God's sake pay attention. It'll take a few days, I'm afraid. They have to post the banns or something. He'll tell you all about it. Now, you must quickly get your birth certificate and give it to him, too. Oh, you have, have you?" Bond laughed. "So much the better. Then we're all set. I've got three days or so of work to do and I'm going down to see your father tomorrow and ask for your hand, both of them, and the feet and all the rest, in marriage. No, you're to stay where you are. This is men's talk. Will he be awake? I'm going to ring him up now. Good. Well, now you go off to sleep or you'll be too tired to say 'Yes' when the time comes."

They had not wanted to let go of each other's voices, but finally the last goodnight, the last kiss, had been exchanged, and Bond called the Marseilles number of Appareils Électriques Draco, and Marc-Ange's voice, almost as excited as Tracy's, was on the line. Bond dampened down the raptures about the fiançailles and said, "Now listen, Marc-Ange. I want you to give me a wedding present."

"Anything, my dear James. Anything I possess." He laughed. "And perhaps certain things of which I could take possession. What is it you would like?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow evening. I'm booked on the afternoon Air France to Marseilles. Will you have someone meet me? And it's business, I'm afraid. So could you have your other directors present for a little meeting? We shall need all our brains. It is about our sales organization in Switzerland. Something drastic needs to be done about it."

"Aha!" There was full understanding in the voice. "Yes, it is indeed a bad spot on our sales map. I will certainly have my colleagues available. And I assure you, my dear James, that anything that can be done will be done. And of course you will be met. I shall perhaps not be there in person -- it is very cold out these winter evenings. But I shall see that you are properly looked after. Goodnight, my dear fellow. Goodnight."

The line had gone dead. The old fox! Had he thought Bond might commit an indiscretion, or had he got fitted to his telephone a "bug-meter," the delicate instrument that measures the resonance on the line and warns of listening in?

The winter sun spread a last orange glow over the thick overcast, 10,000 feet below the softly whistling plane, and switched itself off for the night.

Bond dozed, reflecting that he must somehow, and pretty soon, find a way of catching up on his sleep.

• • •

There was a stage-type Marseilles taxi driver to meet Bond -- the archetype of all Mariuses, with the face of a pirate and the razor-sharp badinage of the lower French music halls. He was apparently known and enjoyed by everyone at the airport, and Bond was whisked through the formalities in a barrage of wisecracks about le milord anglais, which made Marius, for his name turned out in fact to be Marius, the center of attraction and Bond merely his butt, the dim-witted English tourist. But, once in the taxi, Marius made curt, friendly apologies over his shoulder. "I ask your pardon for my bad manners." His French had suddenly purified itself of all patois. It also smelled like acetylene gas. "I was told to extract you from the airport with the least possible limelight directed upon you. I know all those flics and douaniers. They all know me. If I had not been myself, the cab driver they know as Marius, if I had shown deference, eyes, inquisitive eyes, would have been upon you, mon Commandant. I did what I thought best. You forgive me?"

"Of course I do, Marius. But you shouldn't have been so funny. You nearly made me laugh. That would have been fatal."

"You understand our talk here?"

"Enough of it."

"So!" There was a pause. Then Marius said, "Alas, since Waterloo, one can never underestimate the English."

Bond said, seriously, "The same date applied to the French. It was a near thing." This was getting too gallant. Bond said, "Now tell me, is the bouillabaisse chez Guido always as good?"

"It is passable," said Marius. "But this is a dish that is dead, gone. There is no more true bouillabaisse, because there is no more fish in the Mediterranean. For the bouillabaisse, you must have the rascasse, the tender flesh of the scorpion fish. Today they just use hunks of morue. The saffron and the garlic, they are always the same. But you could eat pieces of a woman soaked in those and it would be good. Go to any of the little places down by the harbor. Eat the plat du jour and drink the vin du Cassis that they give you. It will fill your stomach as well as it fills the fishermen's. The toilette will be filthy. What does that matter? You are a man. You can walk up the Canebière and do it at the Noailles for nothing after lunch."

They were now weaving expertly through the traffic down the famous Canebière and Marius needed all his breath to insult the other drivers. Bond could smell the sea. The accordions were playing in the cafés. He remembered old times in this most criminal and tough of all French towns. He reflected that it was rather fun, this time, being on the side of the Devil.

At the bottom of the Canebière, where it crosses the Rue de Rome, Marius turned right and then left into the Rue St. Ferréol, only a long stone's throw from the Quai des Beiges and the Vieux Port. The lights from the harbor's entrance briefly winked at them and then the taxi drew up at a hideous, but very new apartment house with a broad vitrine on the ground floor, which announced in furious neon "Appareils Électriques Draco." The well-lit interior of the store contained what you would expect -- television sets, radios, Gramophones, electric irons, fans and so forth. Marius very quickly carried Bond's suitcase across the pavement and through the swing doors beside the vitrine. The close-carpeted hallway was more luxurious than Bond had expected. A man came out of the porter's lodge beside the lift and wordlessly took the suitcase. Marius turned to Bond, gave him a smile and a wink and a bone-crushing handshake, said curtly, "A la prochaine," and hurried out. The porter stood beside the open door of the lift. Bond noticed the bulge under his right arm and, out of curiosity, brushed against the man as he entered the lift. Yes, and something big too, a real stopper. The man gave Bond a bored look, as much as to say, "Clever? Eh?" and pressed the top button. The porter's twin, or very nearly his twin -- dark, chunky, brown-eyed, fit -- was waiting at the top floor. He took Bond's suitcase and led the way down a corridor, close-carpeted and with wall brackets in good taste. He opened a door. It was an extremely comfortable bedroom with a bathroom leading off. Bond imagined that the big picture window, now curtained, would have a superb view of the harbor. The man put down the suitcase and said, "Monsieur Draco est immédiatement à votre disposition."

Bond thought it time to make some show of independence. He said firmly, "Un moment, je vous en prie," and went into the bathroom and cleaned himself up -- amused to notice that the soap was that most English of soaps, Pears Transparent, and that there was a bottle of Mr. Trumper's "Eucris" beside the very masculine brush and comb by Kent. Marc-Ange was indeed making his English guest feel at home!

Bond took his time, then went out and followed the man to the end door. The man opened it without knocking and closed it behind Bond. Marc-Ange, his creased walnut face split by his great golden-toothed smile, got up from his desk (Bond was getting tired of desks!), trotted across the broad room, threw his arms round Bond's neck and kissed him squarely on both cheeks. Bond suppressed his recoil and gave a reassuring pat to Marc-Ange's broad back. Marc-Ange stood away and laughed. "All right! I swear never to do it again. It is once and forever. Yes? But it had to come out -- from the Latin temperament, isn't it? You forgive me? Good. Then come and take a drink --" he waved at a loaded sideboard -- "and sit down and tell me what I can do for you. I swear not to talk about Teresa until you have finished with your business. But tell me --" the brown eyes pleaded --"it is all right between you? You have not changed your mind?"

Bond smiled. "Of course not, Marc-Ange. And everything is arranged. We will be married within the week. At the Consulate in Munich. I have two weeks' leave. I thought we might spend the honeymoon in Kitzbühel. I love that place. So does she. You will come to the wedding?"

"Come to the wedding!" Marc-Ange exploded. "You will have a time keeping me away from Kitzbühel. Now then --" he waved at the sideboard --"take your drink while I compose myself. I must stop being happy and be clever instead. My two best men, my organizers, if you like, are waiting. I wanted to have you for a moment to myself."

Bond poured himself a stiff Jack Daniel's sourmash bourbon on the rocks and added some water. He walked over to the desk and took the right-hand of the three chairs that had been arranged in a semicircle facing the "Capu." "I wanted that, too, Marc-Ange. Because there are some things I must tell you which affect my country. I have been granted leave to tell them to you, but they must remain, as you put it, behind the Herkos Odonton -- behind the hedge of your teeth. Is that all right?"

Marc-Ange lifted his right hand and crossed his heart, slowly, deliberately, with his forefinger. His face was now deadly serious, almost cruelly implacable. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk. "Continue."

Bond told him the whole story, not even omitting his passage with Ruby. He had developed much love, and total respect, for this man. He couldn't say why. It was partly animal magnetism and partly that Marc-Ange had so opened his heart to Bond, so completely trusted him with his own innermost secrets.

Marc-Ange's face remained impassive throughout. Only his quick, animal eyes flickered continually across Bond's face. When Bond had finished, Marc-Ange sat back. He reached for a blue packet of Gauloises, fixed one in the corner of his mouth and talked through the blue clouds of smoke that puffed continuously out through his lips, as if somewhere inside him there was a small steam engine. "Yes, it is indeed a dirty business. It must be finished with, destroyed, and the man, too. My dear James --" the voice was somber -- "I am a criminal, a great criminal. I run houses, chains of prostitutes, I smuggle, I sell protection, whenever I can, I steal from the very rich. I break many laws and I have often had to kill in the process. Perhaps one day, perhaps very soon, I shall reform. But it is difficult to step down from being Capu of the Union. Without the protection of my men, my life would not be worth much. However, we shall see. But this Blofeld, he is too bad, too disgusting. You have come to ask the Union to make war on him, to destroy him. You need not answer. I know it is so. This is something that cannot be done officially. Your Chief is correct. You would get nowhere with the Swiss. You wish me and my men to do the job." He smiled suddenly. "That is the wedding present you talked of. Yes?"

"That's right, Marc-Ange. But I'll do my bit. I'll be there, too. I want this man for myself."

Marc-Ange looked at him thoughtfully. "That I do not like. And you know why I do not like it." He said mildly, "You are a bloody fool, James. You are already lucky to be alive." He shrugged. "But I am wasting my breath. You started on a long road after this man. And you want to come to the end of it. Is that right?"

"That's right. I don't want someone else to shoot my fox."

"OK, OK. We bring in the others, yes? They will not need to know the reason why. My orders are my orders. But we all need to know how we are to bring this about. I have some ideas. I think it can be done and swiftly done. But it must also be well-done, cleanly done. There must be no untidiness about this thing."

Marc-Ange picked up his telephone and spoke into it. A minute later the door opened and two men came in and, with hardly a glance at Bond, took the other two chairs.

Marc-Ange nodded at the one next to Bond, a great ox of a man with the splayed ears and broken nose of a boxer or wrestler. "This is Ché-Ché -- Ché-Ché le Persuadeur. And --" Marc-Ange smiled grimly --"he is very adept at persuading."

Bond got a glimpse of two hard yellow-brown eyes that looked at him quickly, reluctantly, and then went back to the Capu. "Plaisir."

"And this is Toussaint, otherwise known as 'Le Pouff.' He is our expert with le plastique. We shall need plenty of plastique."

"We shall indeed," said Bond, "with pretty quick time-pencils."

Toussaint leaned forward to show himself. He was thin and gray-skinned, with an almost fine Phoenician profile pitted with smallpox. Bond guessed that he was on heroin, but not as a mainliner. He gave Bond a brief, conspiratorial smile. "Plaisir." He sat back.

"And this --" Marc-Ange gestured at Bond -- "is my friend. My absolute friend. He is simply 'Le Commandant.' And now to business." He had been speaking in French, but he now broke into rapid Corsican which, apart from a few Italian and French roots, was incomprehensible to Bond. At one point he drew a large-scale map of Switzerland out of a drawer of his desk, spread it out, searched with his finger and pointed to a spot in the center of the Engadine. The two men craned forward, examined the map carefully and then sat back. Ché-Ché said something which contained the word Strasbourg and Marc-Ange nodded enthusiastically. He turned to Bond and handed him a large sheet of paper and a pencil. "Be a good chap and get to work on this, would you? A map of the Gloria buildings, with approximate sizes and distances from each other. Later we will do a complete maquette in Plasticine so that there is no confusion. Every man will have his job to do --" he smiled -- "like the commandos in the war. Yes?"

Bond bent to his task while the others talked. The telephone rang. Marc-Ange picked it up. He jotted down a few words and rang off. He turned to Bond, his eyes momentarily suspicious. "It is a telegram for me from London signed Universal. It says, The birds have assembled in the town and all fly tomorrow. What is this, my friend?"

Bond kicked himself for his forgetfulness. "I'm sorry, Marc-Ange. I meant to tell you you might get a signal like that. It means that the girls are in Zürich and are flying to England tomorrow. It is very good news. It was important to have them out of the way."

"Ah, good! Very good indeed! That is fine news. And you were quite right not to have the telegram addressed to you. You are not supposed to be here or to know me at all. It is better so." He fired some more Corsican at the two men. They nodded their understanding.

After that, the meeting soon broke up. Marc-Ange examined Bond's handiwork and passed it over to Toussaint. The man glanced at the sketch and folded it as if it were a valuable share certificate. With short bows in Bond's direction, the two men left the room.

Marc-Ange sat back with a sigh of satisfaction. "It goes well," he said. "The whole team will receive good danger money. And they love a good rough fight. And they are pleased that I am coming to lead them." He laughed slyly. "They are less certain of you, my dear James. They say you will get in the way. I had to tell them that you could out-shoot and outfight the lot of them. When I say something like that, they have to believe me. I have never let them down yet. I hope I am right?"

"Please don't try me," said Bond. "I've never taken on a Corsican and I don't want to start now."

Marc-Ange was delighted. "You might win with guns. But not in close combat. They are pigs, my men. Great pigs. The greatest. I am taking five of the best. With you and me that is seven. How many did you say there are on the mountain?"

"About eight. And the Big One."

"Ah yes, the Big One," said Marc-Ange reflectively. "That is one that must not get away." He got up. "And now, my friend, I have ordered dinner, a good dinner, to be served us up here. And then we will go to bed stinking of garlic and, perhaps, just a little bit drunk. Yes?"

From his heart Bond said, "I can't think of anything better."

• • •

The next day, after lunch, Bond made his way by plane and train to the Hotel Maison Rouge at Strasbourg, his breath bearing him close company like some noisome, captive pet.

He was totally exhilarated by his hours with Marc-Ange in Marseilles and by the prospects before him--the job that was to be done and, at the end of it, Tracy.

The morning had been an endless series of conferences round the model of Piz Gloria and its buildings that had been put up in the night. Bond was vastly impressed by the authority and incisiveness of Marc-Ange as he dealt with each problem, each contingency, from the obtaining of a helicopter clown to the pensions that would be paid to the families of the dead. Marc-Ange hadn't liked the helicopter business. He had explained to Bond, "You see, my friend, there is only one source for this machine, the O.A.S., the French secret army of the right wing. It happens that they are under an obligation to me, a heavy one, and that is the way I would have it. I naturally have my men in the O.A.S. and I happen to know that the O.A.S. has a military helicopter, stolen from the French Army, hidden away at a château on the Rhine not far from Strasbourg. The château belongs to some crazy fascist count. He is one of those Frenchmen who cannot live without conspiring against something. So now he has put all his money and property behind this General Salan. His château is remote. He poses as an inventor. His farm people are not surprised that there is some kind of flying machine kept in an isolated barn with mechanics to tend it--O.A.S. mechanics, bien entendu. And now, early this morning, I have spoken on my radio to the right man and I have the machine on loan for 24 hours with the best pilot in their secret air force. He is already on his way to the place to make his preparations, fuel and so on. But it is unfortunate. Before, these people were in my debt. Now I am in theirs." He shrugged. "What matter? I will soon have them under my thumb again. Half the police and Customs officers in France are Corsicans. It is an important laissez-passer for the Union Corse. You understand?"

• • •

Inside the barn it was almost like a film set. Lights blazed down on the ungainly shape of the Army helicopter and from somewhere came the cough of a small generator. The place seemed to be full of people. Bond recognized the faces of the Union men. The others were, he assumed, the local mechanics. Two men on ladders were busily engaged painting red crosses on white backgrounds on the black-painted fuselage of the machine, and the paint of the recognition letters, FL-BGS, presumably civilian and false, still glittered wetly. Bond was introduced to the pilot, a bright-eyed, fair-haired young man in overalls called Georges. "You will be sitting beside him," explained Marc-Ange. "He is a good navigator, but he doesn't know the last stretch up the valley and he has never heard of Piz Gloria. You had better go over the maps with him after some food. The general route is Basle-Zürich." He laughed cheerfully. He said in French, "We are going to have some interesting conversation with the Swiss Air Defenses, isn't it, Georges?"

Georges didn't smile. He said briefly, "I think we can fool them," and went about his business.

Bond accepted a foot of garlic sausage, a hunk of bread and a bottle of the "Pis-de-Chat," and sat on an upturned packing case while Marc-Ange went back to supervising the loading of the "stores" -- Schmeisser submachine guns and six-inch-square packets in red oilcloth.

In due course, Marc-Ange lined up his team, including Bond, and carried out a quick inspection of sidearms, which, in the case of the Union men, included well-used flick knives. The men, as well as Marc-Ange, were clothed in brand-new ski clothes of gray cloth. Marc-Ange handed to all of them armlets in black cloth bearing the neatly stitched words "Bundesalpenpolizei." When Marc-Ange gave Bond his, he commented, "There is no such force as the 'Federal Police of the Alps.' But I doubt if our Spectre friends will know that. At least the arm bands will make an important first impression."

Marc-Ange looked at his watch. He turned and called out in French, "Two forty-five. All ready? Then let us roll!"

• • •

Almost at once they were over the Rhine and Basle lay ahead under a thick canopy of chimney smoke. They reached 2000 feet and the pilot held it, skirting the town to the north. Now there came a crackle of static over Bond's earphones and Swiss Air Control, in thick Schwyzertütsch, asked them politely to identify themselves. The pilot made no reply and the question was repeated with more urgency. The pilot said in French, "I don't understand you." There was a pause, then a French voice again queried them. The pilot said, "Repeat yourself more clearly." The voice did so. The pilot said, "Helicopter of the Red Cross flying blood plasma to Italy." The radio went dead. Bond could imagine the scene in the control room somewhere down below -- the arguing voices, the doubtful faces. Another voice, with more authority to it, spoke in French. "What is your destination?" "Wait," said the pilot. "I have it here. A moment, please." After minutes he said, "Swiss Air Control?" "Yes, yes." "FL-BGS reporting. My destination is Ospedale Santa Monica at Bellinzona." The radio again went dead, only to come to life five minutes later. "FL-BGS, FL-BGS." "Yes," said the pilot. "We have no record of your identification symbol. Please explain." "Your registration manual must be out of date. The aircraft was commissioned only one month ago." Another long pause. Now Zürich lay ahead and the silver boomerang of the Zürichersee. Now Zürich airport came on the air. They must have been listening to Swiss Air Control. "FL-BGS, FL-BGS." "Yes, yes. What is it now?" "You have infringed the Civil Airlines Channel. Land and report to Flying Control. I repeat. Land and report." The pilot became indignant. "What do you mean, 'land and report'? Have you no comprehension of human suffering? This is a mercy flight carrying blood plasma of a rare category. It is to save the life of an illustrious Italian scientist at Bellinzona. Have you no hearts down there? You tell me to 'land and report' when a life is at stake? Do you wish to be responsible for murder?" This Gallic outburst gave them peace until they had passed the Zürichersee. Bond chuckled. He gave a thumbs-up sign to the pilot. But then Federal Air Control at Berne came on the air and a deep, resonant voice said, "FL-BGS, FL-BGS. Who gave you clearance? I repeat. Who gave you clearance for your flight?" "You did." Bond smiled into his mouthpiece. The Big Lie! There was nothing like it. Now the Alps were ahead of them -- those blasted Alps, looking beautiful and dangerous in the evening sun. Soon they would be in the shelter of the valleys, off the radar screens. But records had been hastily checked in Berne and the somber voice came over to them again. The voice must have realized that the long debate would have been heard at every airport and by most pilots flying over Switzerland that evening. It was extremely polite, but firm. "FL-BGS, we have no record at Federal Air Control of your proposed flight. I regret, but you are transgressing Swiss air space. Unless you can give further authority for your flight, kindly return to Zürich and report to Flying Control."

The helicopter rocked. There was a flash of silver and a Dassault Mirage with Swiss markings flashed by not 100 yards away, turned, leaving a trail of black vapor from the slow burning of its fuel at this low altitude, and headed straight back at them, swerving off to port only at the last moment. The helicopter gave another lurch. The pilot spoke angrily into his mouthpiece. "Federal Air Control. This is FL-BGS. For further information contact International Red Cross at Geneva. I am just a pilot. I am not a rond de cuir, a chair-borne flier. If you have lost the papers, that is not my fault. I repeat, check with Geneva. And, in the meantime, kindly call off the whole of the Swiss Air Force which is at present trying to make my passengers airsick." The voice came back, but now more faintly, because of the mountains. "Who are your passengers?" The pilot played his trump card. "Representatives of the world's press. They have been listening to all this nonsense coming from the home of the famous International Red Cross. I wish you happy reading of your newspapers at breakfast time tomorrow, gentlemen. And now, a little peace, yes? And please record in your logbooks that I am not, repeat, not, the Soviet Air Force invading Switzerland."

There was silence. The Dassault Mirage had disappeared. They were climbing up the valley and were already past Davos. The gold-tipped needles of the glittering mountains seemed to be closing in on them from right and left. Ahead were the great peaks. Bond looked at his watch. Barely another 10 minutes to go.

He turned and glanced down the hatch. The faces of Marc-Ange and of the others looked up at him, tense and livid under the setting sun that poured in through the windows, their eyes glinting redly.

Bond held up his thumb encouragingly. He spread out his 10 fingers in their thin leather gloves.

Marc-Ange nodded. There was a shifting of the bodies in their seats. Bond turned back and gazed ahead, looking for the soaring peak that he loathed and feared.

• • •

Yes! There was the bloody place! Now only the peak was golden. The plateau and the buildings were in indigo shadow, soon to be lit by the full moon.

Bond pointed. The helicopter wasn't liking the altitude. At 10,000 feet, its rotors were finding it hard to get a grip in the thin air and the pilot was struggling to keep it at maximum revs. As he turned to port, in toward the face of the mountain, his radio crackled sharply and a harsh voice said, in German and then in French, "Landing forbidden. This is private property. I repeat, landing forbidden!" The pilot reached up to the cockpit roof and switched off the radio. He had studied his landing point on the plateau on the mock-up. He got to it, hovered and gently came down. The helicopter bounced once on its rubber floats and settled. Already there was a group of men waiting for them. Eight men. Bond recognized some of them. They all had their hands in their pockets or in their wind jackets. The engine coughed to a stop and the rotors swung round briefly in neutral and halted. Bond heard the bang of the door being opened behind him and the rattle of the men piling down the ladder. The two groups lined up facing each other. Marc-Ange said, with authority, "This is the Federal Police Alpine Patrol. There was trouble up here on Christmas Eve. We have come to investigate."

Fritz, the "headwaiter," said angrily, "The local police have already been here. They have made their report. All is in order. Please leave at once. What is the Federal Police Alpine Patrol? I have never heard of it."

The pilot nudged Bond and pointed over to the left, to the building that housed the Count and the laboratories. A man, clumsy in bobsleigh helmet and padding, was running down the path toward the cable station. He would be out of sight of the men on the ground. Bond said "Blast!" and scrambled out of his seat and into the cabin. He leaned out of the door and shouted, "The Big One. He's getting away!"

As Bond jumped, one of the Spectre men shouted, "Der Engländer. Der Spion!" And then, as Bond started running away to the right, weaving and dodging, all hell broke loose. There came the boom of heavy automatics as the Spectre team got off their first rounds, and bullets, tracer, flashed past Bond with the noise of hummingbirds' wings. Then came the answering roar of the Schmeissers and Bond was left alone.

Now he was round the corner of the club, and, 100 yards down the slope, the man in the crash helmet had torn open the door of the "garage" for the bobsleighs in the foundations of the cable station. He emerged carrying a one-man skeleton bob. Holding it in front of him as a shield, he fired a burst from a heavy automatic at Bond and again the hummingbirds whirred past. Bond knelt and, steadying his gun with two hands, fired three rounds with his Walther, but the man was now running the few yards to the glistening ice mouth of the Gloria express bob run. Bond got a glimpse of the profile under the moon. Yes, it was Blofeld all right! Even as Bond ran on down the slope, the man had flung himself down on his skeleton and had disappeared as if swallowed up by the glistening landscape. Bond got to the "garage." Damn, they were all six-men or two-men models! No, there was one skeleton at the back! Bond hauled it out. No time to see if the runners were straight, the steering arm shifting easily! He ran to the start and hurled himself under the protecting chain in a mad forward dive that landed him half on and half off his skeleton. He straightened himself and shifted his body well forward on the flimsy little aluminum platform and gripped the steering arm, keeping his elbows well in to his sides. He was already going like hell down the dark-blue gutter! He tried braking with the toes of both his boots. Damned little difference! What came first on the blasted run? There was this lateral straight across the shoulder of the mountain, then a big banked curve. He was into it now! Bond kept his right shoulder down and inched right on the steering arm. Even so, he went perilously near the top edge of the bank before he dived down into the dark gully again. What came next on that metal map? Why in hell hadn't he studied it more carefully? He got his answer! It looked like a straight, but the shadows camouflaged a sharp dip. Bond left the ground and flew. The crash of his landing almost knocked the wind out of his body. He frantically dug his toes into the ice, managed to get down from perhaps 50 mph to 40. Well, well! So that was "Dead Man's Leap." What in hell was the next bit of murder? "Whiz-Bang Straight"! And by God it was! -- 200 yards when he must have been doing around 70. He remembered that on the finishing straight of the Cresta the stars got up to over 80. No doubt something like that was still to come! But now, flashing toward him, in silver and black, came an S bend -- "Battling S." The toes of Bond's boots slid maddeningly on the black ice. Under his nose he could see the parallel tracks of Blofeld's runners and, between them, the grooves of his toe spikes. The old fox! As soon as he heard the helicopter, he must have got himself fixed for his only escape route. But at this speed Bond must surely be catching up with him! For God's sake look out! Here comes the S! There was nothing he could do about it. He swayed his body as best he could, felt the searing crash of one elbow against one wall, was hurled across into the opposite one and was then spewed out into the straight again. God Almighty, but it hurt! He could feel the cold wind on both elbows. The cloth had gone! Then so had the skin! Bond clenched his teeth. And he was only halfway down, if that! But then, ahead, flashing through a patch of moonlight, was the other body, Blofeld! Bond took a chance, heaved himself up on one hand and reached down for his gun. The wind tried to tear him off the bob, but he had the gun. He opened his mouth wide and gripped the gun between his teeth, flexed the ice-caked leather on his right hand. Then he got the gun in his right hand, lifted his toes off the ice and went like hell. But now the man had disappeared into the shadows and a giant bank reared up ahead. This would be "Hell's Delight"! Oh well, if he could make this, there would be another straight and he could begin shooting. Bond dug his toes in, got a glimpse of an ice wall ahead and to the left, and in a flash was climbing it, straight up! God, in a split second he would be over the edge! Bond hammered in his right boot and lurched his body to the right, tearing at the steering arm. Reluctantly the sliver of aluminum answered and Bond, inches from the top of the wall, found himself swooping down into blackness and then out again onto a moonlit straight. Only 50 yards ahead was the flying figure, with chips of ice fountaining up from the braking spikes on his boots. Bond held his breath and got off two shots. He thought they were good ones, but now the man had gone into shadow again. But Bond was gaining, gaining. His lips drew back from his teeth in an almost animal snarl. You bastard! You're a dead duck! You can't stop or fire back. I'm coming after you like lightning! Soon I shall only be ten, five yards behind you. Then you'll have had it!

But the shadows concealed another hazard, long transverse waves in the ice -- "The Boneshaker"! Bond crashed from one to the next, felt his boots being almost torn from his feet as he tried to brake, nearly lost his gun, felt his stomach flatten against his spine with each shattering impact, felt his rib cage almost cracking. But then it was over and Bond sucked in air through his clenched teeth. Now for a length of straight! But what was that ahead on the track? It was something black, something the size of a big lemon that was bouncing along gaily like a child's rubber ball. Had Blofeld, now only about 30 yards ahead, dropped something, a bit of his equipment? Had he? The realization came to Bond in a surge of terror that almost made him vomit. He ground his toes into the ice. No effect! He was gaining on the gaily bouncing thing. Flashing down on it. On the grenade!

Bond, sick in the stomach, lifted his toes and let himself go. What setting had Blofeld put on it? How long had he held it with the pin out? The only hope was to pray to God and race it!

The next thing Bond knew was that the whole track had blown up in his face and that he and his skeleton bob were flying through the air. He landed in soft snow, with the skeleton on top of him and passed out like a light.

Later, Bond was to estimate that he lay there only a matter of minutes. It was a tremendous explosion from the mountain above him that brought him staggering to his feet, up to his belly in snow. He looked vaguely up to where it had come from. It must have been the club building going up, because now there was the glare of flames and a tower of smoke that rose toward the moon. There came the echoing crack of another explosion and Blofeld's block disintegrated, great chunks of it crashing down the mountainside, turning themselves into giant snowballs that bounded off down toward the treeline. By God, they'll start another avalanche! thought Bond vaguely. Then he realized that it didn't matter this time, he was away to the right, almost underneath the cable railway. And now the station went up and Bond stared fascinated as the great wires, their tension released, came hissing and snaking down the mountain toward him. There was nothing he could do about it but stand and watch. If they cut him down, they cut him down. But they lashed past in the snow, wrapped themselves briefly round the tall pylon above the treeline, tore it away in a metallic crackling, and disappeared over the edge of the shoulder.

Bond laughed weakly with pleasure and began feeling himself for damage. His torn elbows he already knew about, but his forehead hurt like hell. He felt it gingerly, then scooped up a handful of snow and held it against the wound. The blood showed black in the moonlight. He ached all over, but there didn't seem to be anything broken. He bent dazedly to the twisted remains of the skeleton. The steering arm had gone, had probably saved his head, and both runners were bent. There were a lot of rattles from the rivets, but perhaps the damned thing would run. It had bloody well got to! There was no other way for Bond to get down the mountain! His gun? Gone to hell, of course. Wearily Bond heaved himself over the wall of the track and slid carefully down, clutching the remains of his skeleton. As soon as he got to the bottom of the gutter, everything began to slip downward, but he managed to haul himself onto the bob and get shakily going. In fact, the bent runners were a blessing and the bob scraped slowly down, leaving great furrows in the ice. There were more turns, more hazards, but, at a bare 10 miles an hour, they were child's play and soon Bond was through the treeline and into "Paradise Alley," the finishing straight, where he slowly came to a halt. He left the skeleton where it stopped and scrambled over the low ice wall. Here the snow was beaten hard by spectators' feet and he stumbled slowly along, nursing his aches and occasionally dabbing at his head with handfuls of snow. What would he find at the bottom, by the cable station? If it was Blofeld, Bond would be a dead duck! But there were no lights on in the station into which the cables now trailed limply along the ground. By God, that had been an expensive bang! But what of Marc-Ange and his merry men, and the helicopter?

As if to answer him, he heard the clatter of its engine high up in the mountains and in a moment the ungainly black shape crossed the moon and disappeared down the valley. Bond smiled to himself. They were going to have a tough time arguing themselves across Swiss air space this time! But Marc-Ange had thought out an alternative route over Germany. That would also not be fun. They would have to argue the toss with NATO! Well, if a Marseillais couldn't blarney his way across 200 miles, nobody could!

And now, up the road from Samaden that Bond knew so well, came the iron heehaw warning of the local fire engine. The blinking red light on its cabin roof was perhaps a mile away. Bond, carefully approaching the corner of the darkened cable station, prepared his story. He crept up to the wall of the building and looked round. Nobody! No trace except fresh tire marks outside the entrance door. Blofeld must have telephoned his man down here before he started and used him and his car for the getaway. Which way had he gone? Bond walked out onto the road. The tracks turned left. Blofeld would be at the Bernina Pass or over it by now, on his way down into Italy and away. It might still have been possible to have him held at the frontier by alerting the fire brigade, whose lights now held Bond in their beam. No! That would be idiotic. How had Bond got this knowledge unless he himself had been up at Piz Gloria that night? No, he must just play the part of the stupidest tourist in the Engadine!

The shining red vehicle pulled up in front of the cable station and the warning klaxons ran down with an iron groan. Men jumped to the ground. Some went into the station while others stood gazing up at the Piz Gloria, where a dull red glow still showed. A man in a peaked cap, presumably the captain of the team, came up to Bond and saluted. He fired off a torrent of Schwyzertütsch. Bond shook his head. The man tried French. Bond again showed incomprehension. Another man with fragmentary English was called over. "What is it that is happening?" he asked.

Bond shook his head dazedly. "I don't know. I was walking down from Pontresina to Samaden. I came on a day excursion from Zürich and missed my bus. I was going to take a train from Samaden. Then I saw these explosions up the mountain--" he waved vaguely -- "and I walked up there past the station to see better, and the next thing I knew was a bang on the head and being dragged along the path." He indicated his bleeding head and the raw elbows that protruded from his torn sleeves. "It must have been the broken cable. It must have hit me and dragged me with it. Have you got a Red Cross outfit with you?"

"Yes, yes." The man called over to the group, and one of his colleagues, wearing a Red Cross brassard on his arm, fetched his black box from the vehicle and came over. He clucked his tongue over Bond's injuries and, while his interrogator told Bond's story to the Captain, bade Bond follow him into the toilette in the station. There, by the light of a torch, he washed Bond's wounds, applied quantities of iodine that stung like hell and then strapped wide strips of Elastoplast over the damage. Bond looked at his face in the mirror. He laughed. Hell of a bridegroom he was going to make! The Red Cross man cluck-clucked in sympathy, produced a flask of brandy out of his box and offered it to Bond. Bond gratefully took a long swig. The interpreter came in. "There is nothing we can do here. It will need a helicopter from the mountain rescue team. We must go back to Samaden and report. You wish to come?"

"I certainly do," said Bond enthusiastically, and, with many politenesses and no question of why he should attempt the icy walk to Samaden in the dark instead of taking a taxi, he was borne comfortably to Samaden and dropped off, with the warmest gestures of good will and sympathy, at the railway station.

• • •

By a rattling Personenzug to Coire and then by express to Zürich, Bond got to the door of the flat of Head of Station Z in the Bahnhofstrasse at two in the morning. He had had some sleep in the train but he was almost out on his feet, and his whole body felt as if it had been beaten with wooden truncheons. He leaned wearily against the bell ticketed "Muir" until a tousled man in pajamas came and opened the door and held it on the chain. "Um Gottes Willen! Was ist denn los?" he inquired angrily. The English accent came through. Bond said, "It's me that's los. It's 007 again, I'm afraid."

"Good God, man, come in, come in!" Muir opened the door and looked quickly up and down the empty street. "Anyone after you?"

"Shouldn't think so," said Bond thickly, coming gratefully into the warmth of the entrance hall. Head of Z closed the door and locked it. He turned and looked at Bond. "Christ, old boy, what in hell's been happening to you? You look as if you'd been through a mangle. Here, come in and have a drink." He led the way into a comfortable sitting room. He gestured at the sideboard. "Help yourself. I'll just tell Phyllis not to worry -- unless you'd like her to have a look at the damage. She's quite a hand at that sort of thing."

"No, it's all right, thanks. A drink'll fix me. Nice and warm in here. I never want to see a patch of snow again as long as I live."

Muir went out and Bond heard a quick confabulation across the passage. Muir came back. "Phyllis is fixing the spare room. She'll put some fresh dressings and stuff out in the bathroom. Now then --" he poured himself a thin whiskey and soda to keep Bond company and sat down opposite him -- "tell me what you can."

Bond said, "I'm terribly sorry, but I can't tell you much. The same business as the other day. Next chapter. I promise you'd do better to know nothing about it. I wouldn't have come here, only I've got to get a signal off to M, personal, Triple X cipher to be deciphered by recipient only. Would you be a good chap and put it on the printer?"

"Of course." Muir looked at his watch. "Two-thirty a.m. Hell of a time to wake the old man up. But that's your business. Here, come into the cockpit, so to speak." He walked across to the book-lined wall, took out a book and fiddled. There was a click and a small door swung open. "Mind your head," said Muir. "Old disused lavatory. Just the right size. Gets a bit stuffy when there's a lot of traffic coming or going, but that can't be helped. We can afford to leave the door open." He bent down to a safe on the floor, worked the combination and brought out what looked like a portable typewriter. He set it on the shelf next to the bulky teleprinter, sat down and clacked off the prefix and routing instructions, winding a small handle at the side of the machine at the end of each word. "OK. Fire away!"

Bond leaned up against the wall. He had toyed with various formulas on his journey down to Samaden. It had to be something that would get through accurately to M and yet keep Muir in the dark, keep his hands clean. Bond said, "All right. Make it this, would you? Redoubt properly fixed stop details lacking as eye went solo after the owner who greatly regret got away and probably Italicized by now stop forwarding full report from station M then gratefully accepting ten days leave signed 007."

Muir repeated the signal and then began putting it, in the five-figure groups that had come off the Triple X machine, onto the teleprinter.

Bond watched the message go, the end of another chapter of his duties, as Marc-Ange had put it, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." What would Her Majesty think of this string of crimes committed in her name? God, it was stuffy in the little room! Bond felt the cold sweat break out on his forehead. He put his hand up to his face, muttered something indistinctly about "that bloody mountain" and gracefully crumpled to the floor.

• • •

Tracy gazed at him wide-eyed when she met him outside Passport Control at Munich airport, but she waited until they were inside the little Lancia before she burst into tears. "What have they been doing to you?" she said through her sobs. "What have they been doing to you now?"

Bond took her in his arms. "It's all right, Tracy. I promise you. These are only cuts and bruises, like a bad ski fall. Now don't be a goose. They could happen to anyone." He smoothed back her hair and took out his handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

She took the handkerchief from him and laughed through her tears. "Now you've ruined my eye-black. And I put it on so carefully for you." She took out her pocket mirror and carefully wiped away the smudges. She said, "It's so silly. But I knew you were up to no good. As soon as you said you were going off for a few days to clean up something instead of coming to me, I knew you were going to get into more trouble. And now Marc-Ange has telephoned and asked me if I've seen you. He was very mysterious and sounded worried. And when I said I hadn't, he just rang off. And now there's this story in the papers about Piz Gloria. And you were so guarded on the telephone this morning. And from Zürich. I knew it all tied up." She put back her mirror and pressed the self-starter. "All right. I won't ask questions. And I'm sorry I cried." She added fiercely, "But you are such an idiot! You don't seem to think it matters to anyone. The way you go on playing Red Indians. It's so--so selfish."

Bond reached out and pressed her hand on the wheel. He hated "scenes." But it was true what she said. He hadn't thought of her, only of the job. It never crossed his mind that anybody really cared about him. A shake of the head from his friends when he went, a few careful lines in the obituary columns of the Times, a momentary pang in a few girls' hearts. But now, in three days' time, he would no longer be alone. He would be a half of two people. There wouldn't only be May and Mary Goodnight who would tut-tut over him when he came back from some job as a hospital case. Now, if he got himself killed, there would be Tracy who would, at any rate, partially die with him.

The little car wove expertly through the traffic. Bond said, "I'm sorry, Tracy. It was something that had to be done. You know how it is. I just couldn't back out of it. I really wouldn't have been happy here, like I am now, if I'd shirked it. You do see that, don't you?"

She reached out and touched his cheek. "I wouldn't love you if you weren't a pirate. I expect it's in the blood. I'll get used to it. Don't change. I don't want to draw your teeth like women do with their men. I want to live with you, not with somebody else. But don't mind if I howl like a dog every now and then. Or, rather, like a bitch. It's only love." She gave him a fleeting smile. "Die Welt, with the story in it, is behind the seat on the floor."

Bond laughed at her mind reading. "Damn you, Tracy." He reached for the paper. He had been aching to see what it said, how much had come out.

There it was, down the central gutter between the first lead, inevitably on Berlin, and the second, equally inevitably, on the miracle of the latest German export figures. All it said, "from our correspondent," date-lined St. Moritz, was "Mysterious Explosions on Piz Gloria. Cable Railway to Millionaires' Resort Destroyed." And then a few lines repeating the content of the headings and saying that the police would investigate by helicopter at first light in the morning. The next headline caught Bond's eye: "In England, Polio Scare." And then, date-lined the day before from London, a brief Reuter dispatch: "The nine girls held at various British airports on suspicion of having had contact with a possible polio carrier at Zürich airport, also an English girl, are still being held in quarantine. A Ministry of Health representative said that this was purely a routine precaution. A tenth girl, the origin of the scare, a Miss Violet O'Neill, is under observation at Shannon Hospital. She is a native of Eire."

Bond smiled to himself. When they were pushed, the British could do this sort of thing supremely well. How much coordination had this brief report required? To begin with, M. Then the C.I.D., M.I.5, Ag. and Fish., H.M. Customs, Passport Control, the Ministry of Health and the Government of Eire. All had contributed, and with tremendous speed and efficiency. And the end product, put out to the world, had been through the Press Association to Reuter's. Bond tossed the paper over his shoulder and watched the kaiser yellow buildings of what had once been one of the most beautiful towns in Europe, now slowly being rebuilt in the same old kaiser yellow, file by in their postwar drabness. So the case was closed, the assignment over!

But still the Big One had got away! They got to the hotel at about three o'clock. There was a message for Tracy to call Marc-Ange at the Maison Rouge in Strasbourg. They went up to her room and got through. Tracy said, "Here he is, Papa, and almost in one piece." She handed the receiver to Bond.

Marc-Ange said, "Did you get him?"

"No, damn it. He's in Italy now. At least I think he is. That was the way he went. How did you get on? It looked fine from down below."

"Satisfactory. All accounted for."

"Gone?"

"Yes. Gone for good. There was no trace of your man from Zürich. I lost two. Our friend had left a surprise in his filing cabinet. That accounted for Ché-Ché. Another one wasn't quick enough. That is all. The trip back was entertaining. I will give you the details tomorrow. I shall travel tonight in my sleeping car. You know?"

"Yes. By the way, what about the girlfriend, Irma?"

"There was no sign of her. Just as well. It would have been difficult to send her away like the others."

"Yes. Well, thanks, Marc-Ange. And the news from England is also good. See you tomorrow."

Bond put down the receiver. Tracy had discreetly retired to the bathroom and locked the door. She now called, "Can I come out?"

"Two minutes, darling." Bond got on to Station M. His call was expected. He arranged to visit the Head of Station, a man he knew slightly, called Lieutenant-Commander Savage, in an hour's time. He released Tracy and they made plans for the evening, then he went along to his room.

His suitcase had been unpacked and there was a bowl of crocuses beside his bed. Bond smiled, picked up the bowl and placed it firmly on the window sill. Then he got out of his stinking ski clothes, had a quick shower, complicated by having to keep his dressings dry, changed into the warmer of the two dark-blue suits he had brought with him, sat down at the writing desk and jotted down the headings of what he would have to put on the teleprinter to M. Then he put on his dark-blue raincoat and went down into the street and along to the Odeons Platz.

(If he had not been thinking of other things, he might have noticed the woman on the other side of the street, a squat, toadlike figure in a frowsty dark-green loden cloak, who gave a start of surprise when she saw him sauntering along, hustled across the street through the traffic, and got on his tail. She was expert at what she was doing, and, when he went into the newish apartment house on the Odeons Platz, she didn't go near the door to verify the address, but waited on the far side of the square until he came out. Then she tailed him back to the Vier Jahreszeiten, took a taxi back to her fiat and put in a long-distance call to the Metropole Hotel on Lake Como.)

Bond went up to his room. On the writing desk an impressive array of dressings and medicaments had been laid out. He got on to Tracy and said, "What the hell is this? Have you got a passkey or something?"

She laughed. "The maid on this floor has become a friend. She understands people who are in love. Which is more than you do. What do you mean by moving those flowers?"

"They're lovely. I thought they looked prettier by the window and they will get some sun there. Now I'll make a deal. If you'll come along and change my dressings, I'll take you down and buy you a drink. Just one. And three for me. That's the right ratio between men and women. All right?"

"Wilco." Her receiver went down.

It hurt like hell and Bond couldn't prevent the tears of pain from squeezing out of his eyes. She kissed them away. She looked pale at what she had seen. "You're sure you oughtn't to see a doctor?"

"I'm just seeing one. You did it beautifully. What worries me is how we're going to make love. In the proper fashion, elbows are rather important for the man."

"Then we'll do it in an improper fashion. But not tonight, or tomorrow. Only when we're married. Till then I am going to pretend I'm a virgin." She looked at him seriously. "I wish I was, James. I am in a way, you know. People can make love without loving."

"Drinks," said Bond firmly. "We've got all the time in the world to talk about love."

"You are a pig," she said indignantly. "We've got so much to talk about and all you think about is drink."

Bond laughed. He put an arm gingerly round her neck and kissed her long and passionately. He broke away. "There, that's just the beginning of my conversation. We'll go on with the duller bits in the bar. Then we'll have a wonderful dinner in Walterspiel's and talk about rings and whether we'll sleep in twin beds or one, and whether I've got enough sheets and pillows for two, and other exciting things to do with being married."

And it was in that way that the evening passed and Bond's head reeled with all the practical feminine problems she raised, in high seriousness, but he was surprised to find that all this nest-building gave him a curious pleasure, a feeling that he had at last come to rest and that life would now be fuller, have more meaning, for having someone to share it with. Togetherness! What a curiously valid cliché it was!

• • •

The next day was occupied with hilarious meals with Marc-Ange, whose giant trailer had come during the night to take up most of the parking space behind the hotel, and with searching the antique shops for an engagement and a wedding ring. The latter was easy, the traditional plain gold band, but Tracy couldn't make up her mind about the engagement ring and finally dispatched Bond to find something he liked himself while she had her last fitting for her "going-away" dress. Bond hired a taxi, and he and the taximan, who had been a Luftwaffe pilot during the war and was proud of it, tore round the town together until, at an antique shop near the Nymphenburg Palace, Bond found what he wanted--a baroque ring in white gold with two diamond hands clasped. It was graceful and simple and the taximan was also in favor, so the deal was done and the two men went off to celebrate at the Franziskaner Keller, where they ate mounds of Weisswurst and drank four steins of beer each and swore they wouldn't ever fight each other again. Then, happy with his last bachelor party, Bond returned tipsily to the hotel, avoided being embraced by the taximan and went straight up to Tracy's room and put the ring on her finger.

She burst into tears, sobbing that it was the most beautiful ring in the world, but when he took her in his arms she began to giggle. "Oh, James, you are bad. You stink like a pig of beer and sausages. Where have you been?"

When Bond told her, she laughed at the picture he painted of his last fling and then paraded happily up and down the room, making exaggeratedly gracious gestures with her hand to show off the ring and for the diamonds to catch the light.

• • •

"I do."

James Bond said the words at 10:30 in the morning of a crystal-clear New Year's Day in the British Consul General's drawing room.

And he meant them.

The Consul General had proved himself, as British Consuls so often do, to be a man of efficiency and a man with a heart. It was a holiday for him and, as he confessed, he should have been recovering from a New Year's Eve hangover. And he had shaved many days off the formal period of notice, but that, he explained, he had occasionally, and improperly, risked in his career if there were exceptional circumstances such as the imminent death of either party. "You both look healthy enough," he had said when they first visited him together, "but that's a nasty cut on your head, Commander Bond, and the Countess is perhaps looking a little pale. And I have taken the precaution of obtaining special dispensation from the Foreign Secretary, which I may say, to my surprise, was immediately forthcoming. So let's make it New Year's Day. And come to my home. My wife is hopelessly sentimental about these occasional jobs I have to do, and I know she'd love to meet you both."

The papers were signed, and Head of Station M, who had agreed to act as Bond's best man and who was secretly longing to write a sensational note to the head of his London Section about all this, produced a handful of confetti and threw most of it over Marc-Ange, who had turned up in a cylindre and a full suit of very French tails with, surprisingly, two rows of medals of which the last, to Bond's astonishment, was the King's Medal for foreign resistance fighters.

"I will tell you all about it one day, my dear James," he had said in answer to Bond's admiring inquiry. "It was tremendous fun. I had myself what the Americans call a ball. And --" his voice sank to a whisper and he put one finger along his brown, sensitive nose -- "I confess that I profited by the occasion to lay my hands on the secret funds of a certain section of the Abwehr. But Herkos Odonton, my dear James! Herkos Odonton! Medals are so often just the badges of good luck. If I am a hero, it is for things for which no medals are awarded. And --" he drew lines with his fingers across his chest --" there is hardly room on the breast of this frac, which, by the way, is by courtesy of the excellent Galeries Barbés in Marseilles, for all that I am due under that heading."

The farewells were said and Bond submitted himself, he swore for the last time, to Marc-Ange's embraces and they went down the steps to the waiting Lancia. Someone, Bond suspected the Consul's wife, had tied white ribbons from the corners of the windscreen to the grille of the radiator, and there was a small group of bystanders, passers-by, who had stopped, as they do all over the world, to see who it was, what they looked like.

The Consul General shook Bond by the hand. "I'm afraid we haven't managed to keep this as private as you'd have liked. A woman reporter came on from the Münchener Illustrierte this morning. Wouldn't say who she was. Gossip writer, I suppose. I had to give her the bare facts. She particularly wanted to know the time of the ceremony, if you can call it that, so that they could send a cameraman along. At least you've been spared that. All still tight, I suppose. Well, so long and the best of luck."

Tracy, who had elected to "go away" in a dark-gray Tyroler outfit with the traditional dark-green trimmings and staghorn buttons, threw her saucy mountaineer's hat with its gay chamois beard cockade into the back seat, climbed in and pressed the starter. The engine purred and then roared softly as she went through the gears down the empty street. They both waved one hand out of a window and Bond, looking back, saw Marc-Ange's cylindre whirling up into the air. There was a small flutter of answering hands from the pavement and then they were round the corner and away.

When they found the autobahn exit for Salzburg and Kufstein, Bond said, "Be an angel and pull in to the side, Tracy. I've got two things to do."

She pulled in onto the grass verge. The brown grass of winter showed through the thin snow. Bond reached for her and took her in his arms. He kissed her tenderly. "That's the first thing, and I just wanted to say that I'll look after you, Tracy. Will you mind being looked after?"

She held him away from her and looked at him. She smiled. Her eyes were introspective. "That's what it means being Mr. and Mrs., doesn't it? They don't say Mrs. and Mr. But you need looking after, too. Let's just look after each other."

"All right. But I'd rather have my job than yours. Now, I simply must get out and take down those ribbons. I can't stand looking like a coronation. D'you mind?"

She laughed. "You like being anonymous. I want everyone to cheer as we go by. I know you're going to have this car sprayed gray or black as soon as you get a chance. That's all right. But nothing's going to stop me wearing you like a flag from now on. Will you sometimes feel like wearing me like a flag?"

"On all holidays and feast days." Bond got out and removed the ribbons. He looked up at the cloudless sky. The sun felt warm on his face. He said, "Do you think we'd be too cold if we took the roof down?"

"No, let's. We can only see half the world with it up. And it's a lovely drive from here to Kitzbühel. We can always put it up again if we want to."

Bond unscrewed the two butterfly nuts and folded the canvas top back behind the seats. He had a look up and down the autobahn. There was plenty of traffic. At the big Shell station on the round-about they had just passed, his eye was caught by a bright-red open Maserati being tanked up. Fast job. And a typical sporty couple, a man and a woman in the driving seat--white dust coats and linen helmets buttoned under the chin. Big dark-green talc goggles that obscured most of the rest of the faces. Usual German speedster's uniform. Too far away to see if they were good-looking enough for the car, but the silhouette of the woman wasn't promising. Bond got in beside Tracy and they set off again down the beautifully landscaped road.

They didn't talk much. Tracy kept at about 80 and there was wind roar. That was the trouble about open cars. Bond glanced at his watch. 11:45. They would get to Kufstein at about one. There was a splendid Gasthaus up the winding street toward the great castle. Here was a tiny lane of pleasure, full of the heart-plucking whine of zither music and the gentle melancholy of Tyrolean yodelers. It was here that the German tourist traditionally stopped after his day's outing into cheap Austria, just outside the German frontier, for a last giant meal of Austrian food and wine. Bond put his mouth up close to Tracy's ear and told her about it and about the other attraction at Kufstein--the most imaginative war memorial, for the 1914--18 war, ever devised. Punctually at midday every day, the windows of the castle are thrown open and a voluntary is played on the great organ inside. It can be heard for kilometers down the valley between the giant mountain ranges for which Kufstein provides the gateway. "But we shall miss it. It's coming up for 12 now."

"Never mind," said Tracy, "I'll make do with the zithers while you guzzle your beer and schnapps." She turned in to the right-hand fork leading to the underpass for Kufstein, and they were at once through Rosenheim and the great white peaks were immediately ahead.

The traffic was much sparser now and there were kilometers where theirs was the only car on the road that arrowed away between white meadows and larch copses, toward the glittering barrier where blood had been shed between warring armies for centuries. Bond glanced behind him. Miles away down the great highway was a speck of red. The Maserati? They certainly hadn't got much competitive spirit if they couldn't catch the Lancia at 80! No good having a car like that if you didn't drive it so as to lose all other traffic in your mirror. Perhaps he was doing them an injustice. Perhaps they too only wanted to motor quietly along and enjoy the day.

Ten minutes later, Tracy said, "There's a red car coming up fast behind. Do you want me to lose him?"

"No," said Bond. "Let him go. We've got all the time in the world."

Now he could hear the rasping whine of the eight cylinders. He leaned over to the left and jerked a laconic thumb forward, waving the Maserati past.

The whine changed to a shattering roar. The windscreen of the Lancia disappeared as if hit by a monster fist. Bond caught a glimpse of a taut, snarling mouth under a syphilitic nose, the flash eliminator of some automatic gun being withdrawn, and then the red car was past and the Lancia was going like hell off the verge across a stretch of snow and smashing a path through a young copse. Then Bond's head crashed into the windscreen frame and he was out.

When he came to, a man in the khaki uniform of the Autobahn Patrol was shaking him. The young face was stark with horror. "Was ist denn geschehen? Was ist denn geschehen?"

Bond turned toward Tracy. She was lying forward with her face buried in the ruins of the steering wheel. Her pink scarf had come off and the bell of golden hair hung down and hid her face. Bond put his arm round her shoulders, across which the dark patches had begun to flower.

He pressed her against him. He looked up at the young man and smiled his reassurance.

"It's all right," he said in a clear voice as if explaining something to a child. "It's quite all right. She's having a rest. We'll be going on soon. There's no hurry. You see--" Bond's head sank down against hers and he whispered into her hair--"you see, we've got all the time in the world."

The young patrolman took a last scared look at the motionless couple, hurried over to his motorcycle, picked up the hand microphone and began talking urgently to the rescue headquarters.

He lay in the snow gasping for life--while a few yards away gleamed the lights of the masked ball.

This is the last installment of a three-part serialization of Ian Fleming's new novel, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."