Thunderball

The five men trudged calmly back to the ship and into the hold through the hatch. To the boom of the engines the bows of the Disco lifted slowly out of the water and the beautiful ship, streamlined like the gondola of some machine of the air rather than of the sea, skimmed off on the homeward journey.

Largo stripped off his equipment and, with a towel round his slim waist, went forward to the radio cabin. He had missed the midnight call. It was now one-fifteen–seven-fifteen in the morning for Blofeld. Largo thought of this while contact was being made. Blofeld would be sitting there, haggard perhaps, probably unshaven. There would be coffee beside him, the last of an endless chain of cups. Largo could smell it. Now Blofeld would be able to take a taxi to the Turkish baths in the Rue Aubert, his resort when there were tensions to be dissipated. And there, at last, he would sleep. «Number 1 speaking.» «Number 2 listening.»

«Phase III completed. Phase III completed. Successful. One a.m. here. Closing down.» «I am satisfied.»

Largo stripped off the earphones. He thought to himself, «So am I! We are more than three-quarters home. Now only the devil can stop us.»

He went into the stateroom and carefully made himself a tall of his favorite drink–crème de menthe frappé with a maraschino cherry on top.

He sipped it delicately to the end and ate the cherry. Then he took one more cherry out of the bottle, slipped it into his mouth, and went up on the bridge.

11. Domino

The girl in the sapphire blue MG two-seater shot down the slope of Parliament Street and at the junction with Bay Street executed an admirable racing change through third into second. She gave a quick glance to the right, correctly estimated the trot of the straw-hatted horse in the shafts of the rickety cab with the gay fringe, and swerved out of the side street left-handed. The horse jerked back his head indignantly and the coachman stamped his foot up and down on the big Bermuda bell. The disadvantage of the beautiful deep ting-tong, ting-tong of the Bermuda carriage bell is that it cannot possibly sound angry, however angrily you may sound it. The girl gave a cheerful wave of a sunburned hand, raced up the street in second, and stopped in front of the Pipe of Peace, the Dunhills of Nassau.

Not bothering to open the low door of the MG, the girl swung one brown leg and then the other over the side of the car, showing her thighs under the pleated cream cotton skirt almost to her waist, and slipped to the pavement. By now the cab was alongside. The cabby reined in. He was mollified by the gaiety and beauty of the girl. He said, «Missy, you done almost shaved de whiskers off of Old Dreamy here. You wanna be more careful.»

The girl put her hands on her hips. She didn't like being told anything by anyone. She said sharply, «Old Dreamy yourself. Some people have got work to do. Both of you ought to be put out to grass instead of cluttering up the streets getting in everyone's way.»

The ancient Negro opened his mouth, thought better of it, said a pacifying «Hokay, Missy. Hokay,» flicked at his horse, and moved on, muttering to himself. He turned on his seat to get another look at the she-devil, but she had already disappeared into the shop. «Dat's a fine piece of gal,» he said inconsequentially, and put his horse into an ambling trot.

Twenty yards away, James Bond had witnessed the whole scene. He felt the same way about the girl as the cabby did. He also knew who she was. He quickened his step and pushed through the striped sun blinds into the blessed cool of the tobacconist's.

The girl was standing at a counter arguing with one of the assistants. «But I tell you I don't want Senior Service. I tell you I want a cigarette that's so disgusting that I shan't want to smoke it. Haven't you got a cigarette that stops people smoking? Look at all that.» She waved a hand toward the stacked shelves. «Don't tell me some of those don't taste horrible.»

The man was used to crazy tourists, and anyway the Nassavian doesn't get excited. He said, «Well, Ma'am . . .» and turned and languidly looked along the shelves.

Bond said sternly to the girl, «You can choose between two kinds of cigarette if you want to smoke less.»

She looked sharply up at him. «And who might you be?» «My name's Bond, James Bond. I'm the world's authority on giving up smoking. I do it constantly. You're lucky I happen to be handy.»

The girl looked him up and down. He was a man she hadn't seen before in Nassau. He was about six feet tall and somewhere in his middle thirties. He had dark, rather cruel good looks and very clear blue-gray eyes that were now observing her inspection sardonically. A scar down his right cheek showed pale against a tan so mild that he must have only recently come to the island. He was wearing a very dark blue lightweight single-breasted suit over a cream silk shirt and a black knitted silk tie. Despite the heat, he looked cool and clean, and his only concession to the tropics appeared to be the black saddle-stitched sandals on his bare feet. It was an obvious attempt at a pick-up. He had an exciting face, and authority. She decided to go along. But she wasn't going to make it easy. She said coldly, «All right. Tell me.»

«The only way to stop smoking is to stop it and not start again. If you want to pretend to stop for a week or two, it's no good trying to ration yourself. You'll become a bore and think about nothing else. And you'll snatch at a cigarette every time the hour strikes or whatever the intervals may be. You'll behave greedily. That's unattractive. The other way is to have cigarettes that are either too mild or too strong. The mild ones are probably the best for you.» Bond said to the attendant, «A carton of Dukes, king-size with filter.» Bond handed them to the girl. «Here, try these. With the compliments of Faust.»

«Oh, but I can't. I mean . . .»

But Bond had already paid for the carton and for a packet of Chesterfields for himself. He took the change and followed her out of the shop. They stood together under the striped awning. The heat was terrific. The white light on the dusty street, the glare reflected back off the shop fronts opposite and off the dazzling limestone of the houses made them both screw up their eyes. Bond said, «I'm afraid smoking goes with drinking. Are you going to give them both up or one by one?»

She looked at him quizzically. «This is very sudden, Mr.–er–Bond. Well, all right. But somewhere out of the town. It's too hot here. Do you know the Wharf out beyond the Fort Montague?» Bond noticed that she looked quickly up and down the street. «It's not bad. Come on. I'll take you there. Mind the metal. It'll raise blisters on you.»

Even the white leather of the upholstery burned through to Bond's thighs. But he wouldn't have minded if his suit had caught fire. This was his first sniff at the town and already he had got hold of the girl. And she was a fine girl at that. Bond caught hold of the leather-bound safety grip on the dashboard as the girl did a sharp turn up Frederick Street and another one onto Shirley.

Bond settled himself sideways so that he could look at her. She wore a gondolier's broadrimmed straw hat, tilted impudently down over her nose. The pale blue tails of its ribbon streamed out behind. On the front of the ribbon was printed in gold « M/Y DISCO VOLANTE .» Her short-sleeved silk shirt was in half-inch vertical stripes of pale blue and white and, with the pleated cream skirt, the whole get-up reminded Bond vaguely of a sunny day at Henley Regatta. She wore no rings and no jewelery except for a rather masculine square gold wristwatch with a black face. Her flat-heeled sandals were of white doeskin. They matched her broad white doeskin belt and the sensible handbag that lay, with a black and white striped silk scarf, on the seat between them. Bond knew a good deal about her from the immigration form, one among a hundred, which he had been studying that morning. Her name was Dominetta Vitali. She had been born in Bolzano in the Italian Tyrol and therefore probably had as much Austrian as Italian blood in her. She was twenty-nine and gave her profession as «actress.» She had arrived six months before in the Disco and it was entirely understood that she was mistress to the owner of the yacht, an Italian called Emilio Largo. «Whore,» «tart,» «prostitute» were not words Bond used about women unless they were professional streetwalkers or the inmates of a brothel, and when Harling, the Commissioner of Police, and Pitman, Chief of Immigration and Customs, had described her as an «Italian tart» Bond had reserved judgment. Now he knew he had been right. This was an independent, a girl of authority and character. She might like the rich, gay life but, so far as Bond was concerned, that was the right kind of girl. She might sleep with men, obviously did, but it would be on her terms and not on theirs.

Women are often meticulous and safe drivers, but they are very seldom first-class. In general Bond regarded them as a mild hazard and he always gave them plenty of road and was ready for the unpredictable. Four women in a car he regarded as the highest danger potential, and two women as nearly as lethal. Women together cannot keep silent in a car, and when women talk they have to look into each other's faces. An exchange of words is not enough. They have to see the other person's expression, perhaps in order to read behind the other's words or to analyze the reaction to their own. So two women in the front seat of a car constantly distract each other's attention from the road ahead and four women are more than doubly dangerous, for the driver has to hear, and see, not only what her companion is saying but also, for women are like that, what the two behind are talking about.

But this girl drove like a man. She was entirely focused on the road ahead and on what was going on in her driving mirror, an accessory rarely used by women except for making up their faces. And, equally rare in a woman, she took a man's pleasure in the feel of her machine, in the timing of her gear changes, and the use of her brakes.

She didn't talk to Bond or seem to be aware of him, and this allowed him to continue his inspection without inhibition. She had a gay, to-hell-with-you face that, Bond thought, would become animal in passion. In bed she would fight and bite and then suddenly melt into hot surrender. He could almost see the proud, sensual mouth bare away from the even white teeth in a snarl of desire and then, afterward, soften into a half-pout of loving slavery. In profile the eyes were soft charcoal slits such as you see on some birds.but in the shop Bond had seen them full face. Then they had been fierce and direct with a golden flicker in the dark brown that held much the same message as the mouth. The profile, the straight, small uptilted nose, the determined set of the chin, and the clean-cut sweep of the jaw line were as decisive as a royal command, and the way the head was set on the neck had the same authority–the poise one associates with imaginary princesses. Two features modified the clean-cut purity of line–a soft, muddled Brigitte Bardot haircut that escaped from under the straw hat in an endearing disarray, and two deeply cut but soft dimples which could only have been etched by a sweet if rather ironic smile that Bond had not yet seen. The sunburn was not overdone and her skin had none of that dried, exhausted sheen that can turn the texture of even the youngest skin into something more like parchment. Beneath the gold, there was an earthy warmth in the cheeks that suggested a good healthy peasant strain from the Italian Alps, and her breasts, high riding and deeply V-ed, were from the same stock. The general impression, Bond decided, was of a willful, high-tempered, sensual girl–a beautiful Arab mare who would only allow herself to be ridden by a horseman with steel thighs and velvet hands, and then only with curb and saw bit–and then only when he had broken her to bridle and saddle. Bond thought that he would like to try his strength against hers. But that must be for some other time. For the moment another man was in the saddle. He would first have to be unhorsed. And anyway, what the hell was he doing fooling with these things? There was a job to be done. The devil of a job.

The MG swept out of Shirley Street on to Eastern Road and followed the coast. Across the wide harbor entrance were the emerald and turquoise shoals of Athol Island. A deep-sea fishing boat was passing over them, the. two tall antennae of her twelve-foot rods streaming their lines astern. A fast motorboat came hammering by dose inshore, the water-skier on the line behind her executing tight slaloms across the waves of her wake. It was a sparkling, beautiful day and Bond's heart lifted momentarily from the trough of indecision and despondency created by an assignment that, particularly since his arrival at dawn that day, seemed increasingly time-wasting and futile.

The Bahamas, the string of a thousand islands that straggle five hundred miles southeast from just east of the coast of Florida to just north of Cuba, from latitude 27º down to latitude 21º, were, for most of three hundred years, the haunt of every famous pirate of the western Atlantic, and today tourism makes full use of the romantic mythology. A road-sign said « Blackbeard's Tower 1 mile « and another « Gunpowder Wharf. Sea Food. Native Drinks. Shady Garden. First Left .»

A sand track showed on their left. The girl took it and pulled up in front of a ruined stone warehouse against which leaned a pink clapboard house with white window frames and a white Adam-style doorway over which hung a brightly painted inn sign of a powder keg with a skull and crossbones on it. The girl drove the MG into the shade of a clump of casuarinas and they got out and went through the door and through a small dining room with red and white checked covers and out onto a terrace built on the remains of a stone wharf. The terrace was shaded by sea-almond trees trimmed into umbrellas. Trailed by a shuffling colored waiter with soup stains down his white coat, they chose a cool table on the edge of the terrace looking over the water. Bond glanced at his watch. He said to the girl, «It's exactly midday. Do you want to drink solid or soft?»

The girl said, «Soft. I'll have a double Bloody Mary with plenty of Worcester sauce.»

Bond said, «What do you call hard? I'll have a vodka and tonic with a dash of bitters.» The waiter said, «Yassuh» and mooched away.

«I call vodka-on-the-rocks hard. All that tomato juice makes it soft.» She hooked a chair toward her with one foot and stretched out her legs on it so that they were in the sun. The position wasn't comfortable enough. She kicked off her sandals and sat back, satisfied. She said, «When did you arrive? I haven't seen you about. When it's like this, at the end of the season, one expects to know most of the faces.»

«I got in this morning. From New York. I've come to look for a property. It struck me that now would be better than in the season. When all the millionaires are here the prices are hopeless. They may come down a bit now they're gone. How long have you been here?

«About six months. I came out in a yacht, the Disco Volante . You may have seen her. She's anchored up the coast. You probably flew right over her coming in to land at Windsor Field.»

«A long low streamlined affair? Is she yours? She's got beautiful lines.»

«She belongs to a relative of mine.» The eyes watched Bond's face.

«Do you stay on board?»

«Oh, no. We've got a beach property. Or rather we've taken it. It's a place called Palmyra. Just opposite where the yacht is. It belongs to an Englishman. I believe he wants to sell it. It's very beautiful. And it's a long way away from the tourists. It's at a place called Lyford Key.»

«That sounds the sort of place I'm looking for.»

«Well, we'll be gone in about a week.»

«Oh.» Bond looked into her eyes. «I'm sorry.»

«If you've got to flirt, don't be obvious.» Suddenly the girl laughed. She looked contrite. The dimples remained. «I mean, I didn't really mean that–not the way it sounded. But I've spent six months listening to that kind of thing from these silly old rich goats and the only way to shut them up is to be rude. I'm not being conceited. There's no one under sixty in this place. Young people can't afford it. So any woman who hasn't got a harelip or a mustache–well not even a mustache would put them off. They'd probably like it. Well, I mean absolutely any girl makes these old goats get their bifocals all steamed up.» She laughed again. She was getting friendly. «I expect you'll have just the same effect on the old women with pince-nez and blue rinses.»

«Do they eat boiled vegetables for lunch?»

«Yes, and they drink carrot juice and prune juice.»

«We won't get on, then. I won't sink lower than conch chowder.»

She looked at him curiously. «You seem to know a lot about Nassau.»

«You mean about conch being an aphrodisiac? That's not only a Nassau idea. It's all over the world where there are conchs.»

«Is it true?»

«Island people have it on their wedding night. I haven't found it to have any effect on me.»

«Why?» She looked mischievous. «Are you married?»

«No.» Bond smiled across into her eyes. «Are you?»

«No.»

Then we might both try some conch soup some time and see what happens.»

«That's only a little better than the millionaires. You'll have to try harder.»

The drinks came. The girl stirred hers with a finger, to mix in the brown sediment of Worcester sauce, and drank half of it. She reached for the carton of Dukes, broke it open, and slit a packet with her thumbnail. She took out a cigarette, sniffed it cautiously, and lit it with Bond's lighter. She inhaled deeply and blew out a long plume of smoke. She said doubtfully, «Not bad. At least the smoke looks like smoke. Why did you say you were such an expert on giving up smoking?»

«Because I've given it up so often.» Bond thought it time to get away from the small talk. He said, «Why do you talk such good English? Your accent sounds Italian.»

«Yes, my name's Dominetta Vitali. But I was sent to school in England. To the Cheltenham Ladies College. Then I went to RADA to learn acting. The English kind of acting. My parents thought that was a ladylike way to be brought up. Then they were both killed in a train crash. I went back to Italy to earn my living. I remembered my English but»–she laughed without bitterness–»I soon forgot most of the rest. You don't get far in the Italian theater by being able to walk about with a book balanced on your head.»

«But this relative with the yacht.» Bond looked out to sea. «Wasn't he there to look after you?»

«No.» The answer was curt. When Bond made no comment she added, «He's not exactly a relative, not a close one. He's a sort of close friend. A guardian.» «Oh, yes.»

«You must come and visit us on the yacht.» She felt that a bit of gush was needed. «He's called Largo, Emilio Largo. You've probably heard. He's here on some kind of a treasure hunt.»

«Really?» Now it was Bond's turn to gush. «That sounds rather fun, Of course I'd like to meet him. What's it all about? Is there anything in it?»

«Heaven knows. He's very secretive about it. Apparently there's some kind of a map. But I'm not allowed to see it and I have to stay ashore when he goes off prospecting or whatever he does. A lot of people have put up money for it, sort of shareholders. They've all just arrived. As we're going in a week or so, I suppose everything's ready and the real hunt's going to start any moment now.»

«What are the shareholders like? Do they seem sensible sort of people? The trouble with most treasure hunts is that either someone's been there before and sneaked off with the treasure or the ship's so deep in the coral you can't get at it.»

«They seem all right. Very dull and rich. Terribly serious for something as romantic as treasure hunting. They seem to spend all their time with Largo. Plotting and planning, I suppose. And they never seem to go out in the sun or go bathing or anything. It's as if they didn't want to get sunburned. As far as I can gather, none of them have ever been in the tropics before. Just a typical bunch of stuffy businessmen. They're probably better than that. I haven't seen much of them. Largo's giving a party for them at the Casino tonight.»

«What do you do all day?»

«Oh, I fool around. Do a bit of shopping for the yacht. Drive around in the car. Bathe on other people's beaches when their houses are empty. I like underwater swimming. I've got an aqualung and I take one of the crew out or a fisherman. The crew are better. They all do it.»

«I used to do it a bit. I've brought my gear. Will you show me some good bits of reef sometime?»

The girl looked pointedly at her watch. «I might do. It's time I went.» She got up. «Thanks for the drink. I'm afraid I can't take you back. I'm going the other way. They'll get you a taxi here.» She shuffled her feet into her sandals.

Bond followed the girl through the restaurant to her car. She got in and pressed the starter. Bond decided to risk another snub. He said, «Perhaps I'll see you at the Casino tonight, Dominetta.»

«Praps.» She put the car pointedly into gear. She took another look at him. She decided that she did want to see him again. She said, «But for God's sake don't call me Dominetta. I'm never called that. People call me Domino.» She gave him a brief smile, but it was a smile into the eyes. She raised a hand. The rear wheels spat sand and gravel and the little blue car whirled out along the driveway to the main road. It paused at the intersection and then, as Bond watched, turned righthanded toward Nassau.

Bond smiled. He said, «Bitch,» and walked back into the restaurant to pay his bill and have a taxi called.

12. The Man from the C.I.A.

The taxi took Bond out to the airport at the other end of the island by the Interfield Road. The man from the Central Intelligence Agency Was due in by Pan American at one-fifteen. His name was Larkin, F. Larkin. Bond hoped he wouldn't be a muscle-bound ex-college man With a crew-cut and a desire to show up the incompetence of the British, the backwardness of their little Colony, and the clumsy ineptitude of Bond, in order to gain credit with his chief in Washington. Bond hoped that at any rate he would bring the equipment he had asked for before he left London through Section A, who looked after the liaison with C.I.A. This was the latest transmitter and receiver for agents in the field, so that the two of them could be independent of cable offices, and have instant communication with London and Washington, and the most modern portable Geiger counters for operating both on land and under water. One of the chief virtues of C.I.A., in Bond's estimation, was the excellence of their equipment, and he had no false pride about borrowing from them.

New Providence, the island containing Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, is a drab sandy slab of land fringed with some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. But the interior is nothing but a waste of low-lying scrub, casuarinas, mastic, and poison-wood with a large brackish lake at the western end. There are birds and tropical flowers and palm trees, imported fully grown from Florida, in the beautiful gardens of the millionaires round the coast, but in the middle of the island there is nothing to attract the eye but the skeleton fingers of spidery windmill pumps sticking up above the pine barrens, and Bond spent the ride to the airport reviewing the morning.

He had arrived at seven a.m. to be met by the Governor's A.D.C. –a mild error of security–and taken to the Royal Bahamian, a large old-fashioned hotel to which had recently been applied a thin veneer of American efficiency and tourist gimmicks–ice water in his room, a Cellophane-wrapped basket of dingy fruit «with the compliments of the Manager,» and a strip of «sanitized» paper across the lavatory seat. After a shower and a tepid, touristy breakfast on his balcony overlooking the beautiful beach, he had gone up to Government House at nine o'clock for a meeting with the Commissioner of Police, the Chief of Immigration and Customs, and the Deputy Governor. It was exactly as he had imagined it would be. The MOST IMMEDIATES and the TOP SECRETS had made a superficial impact and he was promised full cooperation in every aspect of his assignment, but the whole business was clearly put down as a ridiculous flap and something that must not be allowed to interfere with the normal routine of running a small, sleepy colony, nor with the comfort and happiness of the tourists. Roddick, the Deputy Governor, careful, middle-of-the-way man with a ginger mustache and gleaming pince-nez, had put the whole affair in a most sensible light. «You see, Commander Bond, in our opinion–and we have most carefully debated all the possibilities, all the, er, angles, as our American friends would say–it is inconceivable that a large four-engined plane could have been hidden anywhere within the confines of the Colony. The only airstrip cable of taking such a plane–am I right, Harling?– is here in Nassau. So far as a landing on the sea is concerned, a, er, ditching I think they call it, we have been in radio contact with the Administrators on all the larger outer islands and the replies are all negative. The radar people at the meteorological station . . .»

Bond had interrupted at this point. «Might I ask if the radar screen is manned round the clock? My impression is that the airport is very busy during the day, but that there is very little traffic at night. Would it be possible that the radar is not so closely watched at night?»

The Commissioner of Police, a pleasant, very military-looking man in his forties, the silver buttons and insignia on whose dark blue uniform glittered as they can only when spit and polish is a main activity and there are plenty of batmen around, said judiciously, «I think the Commander has a point there, sir. The airport commandant admits that things do slacken off a bit when there's nothing scheduled. He hasn't got all that amount of staff and of course most of them are locals, sir. Good men, but hardly up to London Airport standards. And the radar at the met. station is only a G.C.A. set with a low horizon and range–mostly used for shipping.»

«Quite, quite.» The Deputy Governor didn't want to be dragged into a discussion about radar sets or the merits of Nassavian labor. «There's certainly a point there. No doubt Commander Bond will be making his own inquiries. Now there was a request from the Secretary of State»–the title rolled sonorously forth–»for details and comments on recent arrivals in the island, suspicious characters, and so forth. Mr. Pitman?»

The Chief of Immigration and Customs was a sleek Nassavian with quick brown eyes and an ingratiating manner. He smiled pleasantly. Nothing out of the ordinary, sir. The usual mixture of tourists and businessmen and local people coming home. We were asked to have details for the past two weeks, sir.» He touched the brief case on his lap. «I have all the immigration forms here, sir. Perhaps Commander Bond would care to go through them with me.» The brown eyes flicked toward Bond and away. «All the big hotels have house detectives. I could probably get him further details on any particular name. All Passports were checked in the normal manner. There were no irregularities and none of these people was on our Wanted List.»

Bond said, «Might I ask a question?»

The Deputy Governor nodded enthusiastically. «Of course. Of course. Anything you like. We're all here to help.»

«I'm looking for a group of men. Probably ten or more. They probably stick together a good deal. Might be as many as twenty or thirty. I guess they would be Europeans. They probably have a ship or a plane. They may have been here for months or only a few days. I gather you have plenty of conventions coming to Nassau–salesmen, tourist associations, religious groups, heaven knows what all. Apparently they take a block of rooms in some hotel and hold meetings and so forth for a week or so. Is there anything like that going on at the moment?»

«Mr. Pitman?»

«Well, of course we do have plenty of those sort of gatherings. Very welcome to the Tourist Board.» The Chief of Immigration smiled conspiratorially at Bond as if he had just given away a closely guarded secret. «But in the last two weeks we've only had a Moral Rearmament Group at the Emerald Wave and the Tiptop Biscuit people at the Royal Bahamian. They've gone now. Quite the usual convention pattern. All very respectable.»

«That's just it, Mr. Pitman. The people I'm looking for, the people who may have arranged to steal this plane, will certainly take pains to look respectable and behave in a respectable fashion. We're not looking for a bunch of flashy crooks. We think these must be very big people indeed. Now, is there anything like that on the island, a group of people like that?»

«Well»–the Chief of Immigration smiled broadly–»of course we've got our annual treasure hunt going on.»

The Deputy Governor barked a quick, deprecating laugh. «Now, steady on, Mr. Pitman. Surely we don't want them to get mixed up in all this, or heaven knows where we shall end. I can't believe Commander Bond wants to bother his head over a lot of rich beachcombers.»

The Commissioner of Police said doubtfully, «The only thing is, sir–they do have a yacht, and a small plane for the matter of that. And I did hear that a lot of shareholders in the swindle had come in lately. Those points do tally with what the Commander was asking about. I admit it's ridiculous, but this man Largo's respectable enough for Commander Bond's requirements and his men have never once given us trouble. Unusual to have not even one case of drunkenness in a ship's crew in nearly six months.»

And Bond had leaped at the flimsy thread and had pursued it for another two hours– in the Customs building and in the Commissioner's office– and, as a result, he had gone walking in the town to see if he could get a look at Largo or any of his party or pick up any other shreds of gossip. As a result he had got a good look at Domino Vitali.

And now?

The taxi had arrived at the airport. Bond told the driver to wait and walked into the long low entrance hall just as the arrival of Larkin's flight was being announced over the Tannoy. He knew there would be the usual delay for customs and immigration. He went to the souvenir shop and bought a copy of the New York Times . In its usual discreet headlines it was still leading with the loss of the Vindicator. Perhaps it knew also about the loss of the atom bombs, because Arthur Krock, on the editorial page, had a heavyweight column about the security aspects of the NATO alliance. Bond was halfway through this when a quiet voice in his ear said, «007? Meet No. 000.»

Bond swung round. It was! It was Felix Leiter!

Leiter, his C.I.A. companion on some of the most thrilling cases in Bond's career, grinned and thrust the steel hook that was his right hand under Bond's arm. «Take it easy, friend. Dick Tracy will tell all when we get out of here. Bags are out front. Let's go.»

Bond said, «Well God damn it! You old so-and-so! Did you know it was going to be me?»

«Sure. C.I.A. knows all.»

At the entrance Leiter had his luggage, which was considerable, put aboard Bond's taxi, and told the driver to take it to the Royal Bahamian. A man standing beside an undistinguished-looking black Ford Consul sedan left the car and came up. «Mr. Larkin? I'm from the Hertz company. This is the car you ordered. We hope she's what you want. You did specify something conventional.»

Leiter glanced casually at the car. «Looks all right. I just want a car that'll go. None of those ritzy jobs with only room for a small blonde with a sponge bag. I'm here to do property work– not jazz it up.

«May I see your New York license, sir? Right. Then if you'll just sign here . . . and I'll make a note of the number of your Diner's Club card. When you go, leave the car anywhere you like and just notify us. We'll collect it. Have a good holiday, sir.»

They got into the car. Bond took the wheel. Leiter said that he'd have to practice a bit on what he called «this Limey southpaw routine» of driving on the left, and anyway he'd be interested to see if Bond had improved his cornering since their last drive together.

When they were out of the airport Bond said, «Now go ahead and tell. Last time we met you were with Pinkertons. What's the score?»

«Drafted. Just damned well drafted. Hell, anyone would think there was a war on. You see, James, once you've worked for C.I.A., you're automatically put on the reserve of officers when you leave. Unless you've been cashiered for not eating the code book under fire or something. And apparently my old Chief, Alien Dulles that is, just didn't have the men to go round when the President sounded the fire alarm. So I and twenty or so other guys were just pulled in–drop everything, twenty-four hours to report. Hell! I thought the Russians had landed! And then they tell me the score and to pack my bathing trunks and my spade and bucket and come on down to Nassau. So of course I griped like hell. Asked them if I shouldn't brush up on my Canasta game and take some quick lessons in the cha-cha. So then they unbuttoned and told me I was to team up with you down here and I thought maybe if that old bastard of yours, N or M or whatever you call him, had sent you down here with your old equalizer, there might be something cooking in the pot after all. So I picked up the gear you'd asked for from Admin., packed the bow and arrows instead of the spade and bucket, and here I am. And that's that. Now you tell, you old sonofabitch. Hell, it's good to see you.»

Bond took Leiter through the whole story, point by point from the moment he had been summoned to M's office the morning before. When he came to the shooting outside his headquarters, Leiter stopped him.

«Now what do you make of that, James? In my book that's a pretty funny coincidence. Have you been fooling around with anybody's wife lately? Sounds more like around the Loop in Chicago than a mile or so from Piccadilly.»

Bond said seriously, «It makes no sense to me, and none to anyone else. The only man who might have had it in for me, recently that is, is a crazy bastard I met down at a sort of clinic place I had to go to on some blasted medical grounds.» Bond, to Leiter's keen pleasure, rather sheepishly gave details of his «cure» at Shrublands. «I bowled this man out as a member of a Chinese Tong, one of their secret societies, the Red Lightning Tong. He must have heard me getting the gen on his outfit from Records–on an open line from a call box in the place. Next thing, he damned near managed to murder me. Just for a lark, and to get even, I did my best to roast him alive.» Bond gave the details. «Nice quiet place, Shrublands. You'd be surprised how carrot juice seems to affect people.» «Where was this lunatic asylum?»

«Place called Washington. Modest little place compared with yours. Not far from Brighton.»

«And the letter was posted from Brighton.» «That's the hell of a long shot.»

«I'll try another. One of the points our chaps brought up was that if a plane was to be stolen at night and landed at night, a full moon would be the hell of an aid to the job. But the plane was taken five days after the full. Just supposing your roast chicken was the letter-sender. And supposing the roasting forced him to delay sending the letter while he recovered. His employers would be pretty angry. Yes?»

«I suppose so.»

«And supposing they gave orders for him to be rubbed for inefficiency. And supposing the killer got to him just as he got to you to settle his private account. From what you tell me he wouldn't have lain down under what you did to him. Well, now. Just supposing all that. It adds up, doesn't it?»

Bond laughed, partly in admiration. «You've been taking mescalin or something. It's a damned good sequence for a comic strip, but these things don't happen in real life.»

«Planes with atom bombs don't get stolen in real life. Except that they do. You're slowing down, James. How many people would believe the files on some of the cases you and I have got mixed up in? Don't give me that crap about real life. There ain't no such animal.»

Bond said seriously, «Well, look here, Felix. Tell you what I'll do. There's just enough sense in your story, so I'll put it on the machine to M tonight and see if the Yard can get anywhere with it. They could check with the clinic and the hospital in Brighton, if that's where he was taken, and they may be able to get on from there. Trouble is, wherever they get, there's nothing left of the man but his shoes, and I doubt if they'll catch up with the man on the motorbike. It looked a real pro job to me.»

«Why not? These highjackers sound like pros. It's a pro plan. It all fits all right. You go ahead and put it on the wire and don't be ashamed of saying it was my idea. My medal collection has got to looking a bit thin since I left the outfit.»

They pulled up under the portico of the Royal Bahamian and Bond gave the keys to the parking attendant. Leiter checked in and they went up to his room and sent for two double dry martinis on the rocks and the menu.

From the pretentious dishes, «For Your Particular Consideration,» printed in Ornamental Gothic, Bond chose Native Seafood Cocktail Supreme followed by Disjointed Home Farm Chicken, Sauté au Cresson, which was described in italics as «Tender Farm Chicken, Broiled to a Rich Brown, Basted with Creamery Butter and Disjointed for Your Convenience. Price 38/6 or dollars 5.35.» Felix Leiter went for the Baltic Herring in Sour Cream followed by «Chopped Tenderloin of Beef, French Onion Rings (Our Renowned Beef is Chef-Selected from the Finest Corn-fed, Mid-Western Cattle, and Aged to Perfection to Assure You of the Very Best). Price 40/3 or dollars 5.65.»

When they had both commented sourly and at length about the inflated bogosity of tourist-hotel food and particularly the mendacious misuse of the English language to describe materials which had certainly been in various deepfreezes for at least six months, they settled down on the balcony to discuss Bond's findings of the morning. Half an hour and one more double dry martini later, their luncheon came. The whole thing amounted to about five shillings' worth of badly cooked rubbish. They ate in a mood of absent-minded irritation, saying nothing. Finally Leiter threw down his knife and fork. «This is hamburger and bad hamburger. The French onion rings were never in France, and what's more»–he poked at the remains with a fork–»they're not even rings. They're oval.» He looked belligerently across at Bond. «All right, Hawkshaw. Where do we go from here?»

«The major decision is to eat out in future. The next is to pay a visit to the Disco –now.» Bond got up from the table. «When we've done that, we'll have to decide whether or not these people are hunting pieces of eight or £100,000,000. Then we'll have to report progress.» Bond waved at the packing cases in a corner of the room. «I've got the loan of a couple of rooms on the top floor of police headquarters here. The Commissioner's cooperative and a solid character. These Colonial Police are good, and this one's a cut above the rest. We can set up the radio there and make contact this evening. Tonight there's this party at the Casino. We'll go to that and see if any of these faces mean anything to either of us. The first thing's to see if the yacht's clean or not. Can you break that Geiger counter out?»

«Sure. And it's a honey.» Leiter went to the cases, selected one, and opened it. He came back carrying what looked like a Rolleiflex camera in a portable leather case. «Here, give me a hand.» Leiter took off his wrist watch and strapped on what appeared to be another watch. He slung the «camera» by its strap over his left shoulder. «Now run those wires from the watch up my sleeve and down inside my coat. Right. Now these two small plugs go through these holes in my coat pocket and into the two holes in the box. Got it? Now we're all fixed.» Leiter stood back and posed. «Man with a camera and a wrist watch.» He unbuttoned the flap of the camera. «See? Perfectly good lenses and all that. Even a button to press in case you have to seem to take a picture. But in back of the make-believe there's a metal valve, a circuit, and batteries. Now take a look at this watch. And it is a watch.» He held it under Bond's eyes. «Only difference is that it's a very small watch mechanism and that sweep secondhand is a meter that takes the radioactive count. Those wires up the sleeve hitch it on to the machine. Now then. You're still wearing that old wrist watch of yours with the big phosphorus numerals. So I walk round the room for a moment to get the background count. That's basic. All sorts of things give off radiation of some sort. And I take an occasional glance at my watch–nervous type, and I've got an appointment coming up. Now here, by the bathroom, all that metal is giving off something and my watch is registering positive, but very little. Nothing else in the room and I've established the amount of background interference I'll have to discount when I start to get hot. Right? Now I come close up to you and my camera's only a few inches away from your hand. Here, took a look. Put your watch right up against the counter. See! The sweephand is getting all excited. Move your watch away and it loses interest. It's those phosphorus numerals of yours. Remember the other day one of the watch companies withdrew an air pilots' watch from the market because the Atomic Energy People got fussy? Same thing. They thought this particular pilots' watch, with the big phosphorescent numerals, was giving off too much radiation to be good for the wearer. Of course»–Leiter patted the camera case–»this is a special job. Most types give off a clicking sound, and if you're prospecting for uranium, which is the big market for these machines, you wear earphones to try and pick up the stuff underground. For this job we don't need anything so sensitive. If we get near where those bombs are hidden, this damned sweephand'll go right off the dial. Okay? So let's go hire ourselves a sixpenny sick and pay a call on the ocean greyhound.»

13. «My Name Is Emilio Largo»

Leiter's «sixpenny sick» was the hotel launch, a smart Chrysler-engined speedboat that said it would be $20 an hour. They ran out westward from the harbor, past Silver Cay, Long Cay, and Balmoral Island and round Delaporte Point. Five miles farther down the coast, encrusted with glittering seashore properties the boatman said cost £400 per foot of beach frontage, they rounded Old Fort Point and came upon the gleaming white and dark blue ship lying with two anchors out in deep water just outside the reef. Leiter whistled. He said in an awestruck voice, «Boy, is that a piece of boat! I'd sure like to have one of those to play with in my bath.»

Bond said, «She's Italian. Built by a firm called Rodrigues at Messina. Thing called an Aliscafo . She's got a hydrofoil under the hull and when she gets going you let this sort of skid down and she rises up and practically flies. Only the screws and a few feet of the stern stay in the water. The Police Commissioner says she can do fifty knots in calm water. Only good for inshore work of course, but they can carry upwards of a hundred passengers when they're designed as fast ferries. Apparently this one's been designed for about forty. The rest of the space is taken up with the owner's quarters and cargo space. Must have cost damned near a quarter of a million.»

The boatman broke in. «They say on Bay Street that she goin' go after the treasure these next few days or so. All the people that own share in the gold come in a few days ago. Then she spen' one whole night doin' a final recce. They say is down Exhuma way, or over by Watlings Island. Guess you folks know that's where Columbus make him first landfall on this side of the Atlantic. Around fourteen ninety somethin'. But could be anywhere down there. They's always been talk of treasure down 'mongst the Ragged Islands–even as far as Crooked Island. Fact is she sail out southward. Hear her myself, right until her engines died away. East by southeast, I'da say.» The boatman spat discreetly over the side. «Must be plenty heap of treasure with the cost of that ship and all the money they throwing 'way. Every time she go to the Hoiling Wharf they say the bill's five hundred pound.»

Bond said casually, «Which night was it they did the final recce?»

«Night after she hoiled. That'd be two nights ago. Sail round six.»

The blank portholes of the ship watched them approach. A sailor polishing brass round the curve of the enclosed dome that was the bridge walked through the hatch into the bridge and Bond could see him talking into a mouthpiece. A tall man in white ducks and a very wide mesh singlet appeared on deck and observed them through binoculars. He called something to the sailor, who came and stood at the top of the ladder down the starboard side. When their launch came alongside, the man cupped his hands and called down, «What is your business, please? Have you an appointment?»

Bond called back, «It's Mr. Bond, Mr. James Bond. From New York. I have my attorney here. I have an inquiry to make about Palmyra, Mr. Largo's property.»

«One moment, please.» The sailor disappeared and returned accompanied by the man in white ducks and singlet. Bond recognized him from the police description. He called down cheerfully, «Come aboard, come aboard.» He gestured for the sailor to go down and help fend the launch. Bond and Leiter climbed out of the launch and went up the ladder.

Largo held out a hand. «My name is Emilio Largo. Mr. Bond?»

And . . .?»

«Mr. Larkin, my attorney from New York. Actually I'm English, but I have property in America.» They shook hands. «I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Largo, but it's about Palmyra, the property I believe you rent from Mr. Bryce.»

«Ah, yes, of course.» The beautiful teeth gleamed warmth and welcome. «Come on down to the stateroom, gentlemen. I'm sorry I am not properly dressed to receive you.» The big brown hands caressed his flanks, the wide mouth turned down in deprecation. «My visitors usually announce themselves on the ship-to-shore. But if you will forgive the informality . . .» Largo allowed the phrase to die on the air and ushered them through a low hatch and down a few aluminum steps into the main cabin. The rubber-lined hatch hissed to behind him.

It was a fine large cabin paneled in mahogany with a deep wine-Red carpet and comfortable dark blue leather club chairs. The sun shining through the slats of Venetian blinds over the broad square ports added a touch of gay light to an otherwise rather somber and masculine room, its long center table littered with papers and charts, glass-fronted cabinets containing fishing gear and an array of guns and other weapons, and a black rubber underwater diving suit and aqualung suspended, almost like the skeleton in a sorcerer's den, from a rack in one corner. The air-conditioning made the cabin deliciously cool, and Bond felt his damp shirt slowly freeing itself from his skin.

«Please take a chair, gentlemen.» Largo carelessly brushed aside the charts and papers on the table as if they were of no importance. «Cigarettes?» He placed a large silver box between them. «And now what can I get you to drink?» He went to the loaded sideboard. «Something cool and not too strong perhaps? A Planter's Punch? Gin and tonic? Or there are various beers. You must have had a hot journey in that open launch. I would have sent my boat for you if only I had known.»

They both asked for a plain tonic. Bond said, «I'm very sorry to barge in like this, Mr. Largo, No idea I could have got you on the telephone. We just got in this morning, and as I've only a few days I have to get a move on. The point is, I'm looking for a property down here.»

«Oh, yes?» Largo brought the glasses and bottles of tonic to the table and sat down so that they formed a comfortable group. «What a good idea. Wonderful place. I've been here f9r six months and already I'd like to stay forever. But the prices they're asking–» Largo threw up his hands. «These Bay Street pirates. And the millionaires, they are even worse. But you are wise to come at the end of the season. Perhaps some of the owners are disappointed not to have sold. Perhaps they will not open their mouths so wide.»

«That's what I thought.» Bond sat comfortably back and lit a cigarette. «Or rather what my lawyer, Mr. Larkin, advised.» Leiter shook his head pessimistically. «He had made some inquiries and he frankly advised that real-estate values down here have gone mad.» Bond turned politely toward Leiter to bring him into the conversation. «Isn't that so?»

«Daft, Mr. Largo, quite daft. Worse even than Florida. Out of

this world. I wouldn't advise any client of mine to invest at these prices.»

«Quite so.» Largo obviously didn't want to get drawn too deeply into these matters. «You mentioned something about Palmyra. Is there anything I can do to help in that respect?»

Bond said, «I understand you have a lease of the property, Mr. Largo. And there is talk that you may be leaving the house before long. Only gossip, of course. You know what they are in these small islands. But it sounds more or less what I'm looking for and I gather the owner, this Englishman, Bryce, might sell if he got the right price. What I was going to ask you»–Bond looked apologetic–»was whether we might drive out and look the place over. Some time when you weren't there of course. Any time that might suit you.»

Largo flashed his teeth warmly. He spread his hands. «But of course, of course, my dear fellow. Whenever you wish. There is no one in residence but my niece and a few servants. And she is out most of the time. Please just call her up on the telephone. I shall tell her that you will be doing so. It is indeed a charming property–so imaginative. A beautiful piece of design. If only all rich men had such good taste.»

Bond got to his feet and Leiter followed suit. «Well, that's extraordinarily kind of you, Mr. Largo. And now we'll leave you in peace. Perhaps we may meet again in the town some time. You must come and have lunch. But»–Bond poured admiration and flattery into his voice–»with a yacht like this, I don't suppose you ever want to come ashore. Must be the only one on this side of the Atlantic. Didn't one used to run between Venice and Trieste? I seem to remember reading about it somewhere.»

Largo grinned his pleasure. «Yes, that is right, quite right. They are also on the Italian lakes. For passenger traffic. Now they are buying them in South America. A wonderful design for coastal waters. She only draws four feet when the hydrofoil is operating.»

«I suppose accommodation's the problem?»

It is a weakness of all men, though not necessarily of all women, to love their material possessions. Largo said, with a trace of pricked vanity, «No, no. I think you will find that it is not so. You can spare five minutes? We are rather crowded at the moment. You have heard no doubt of our treasure hunt?» He looked sharply at them as a man would who expects ridicule. «But we will not discuss that now. No doubt you do not believe in these things. But my associates in the affair are all on board. With the crew, there are forty of us. You will see that we are not cramped. You would like?» Largo gestured to the door in the rear of the stateroom.

Felix Leiter showed reluctance. «You know, Mr. Bond, that we have that meeting with Mr. Harold Christie at five o'clock?»

Bond waved the objection aside. «Mr. Christie is a charming man.

I know he won't mind if we are a few minutes late. I'd love to see over the ship if you're sure you can spare the time, Mr. Largo.» Largo said, «Come. It will not take more than a few minutes. The excellent Mr. Christie is a friend of mine. He will understand.» He went to the door and held it open.

Bond had been expecting the politeness. It would interfere with

Leiter and his apparatus. He said firmly, «Please go first, Mr. Largo.

You will be able to tell us when to duck our heads.» With more affabilities, Largo led the way. Ships, however modern, are more or less the same–the corridors to port and starboard of the engine room, rows of cabin doors, which

Largo explained were occupied, the large communal bathrooms, the galley, where two cheerful-looking Italians in white smocks laughed at Largo's jokes.about the food and seemed pleased with the visitors' interest, the huge engine room where the chief engineer and his mate, Germans it seemed, gave enthusiastic information about the powerful twin Diesels and explained the hydraulics of the hydrofoil depressor –it was all exactly like visiting any other ship and saying the right things to the crew, using the right superlatives to the owner.

The short space of afterdeck was occupied by the little two-seater amphibian, painted dark blue and white to match the yacht, its wings now folded and its engine cowled against the sun, a big jolly-boat to hold about twenty men, and an electric derrick to hoist them in- and outboard. Bond, estimating the ship's displacement and her freeboard, said casually, «And the hold? More cabin space?»

«Just storage. And the fuel tanks, of course. She is an expensive ship to run. We have to carry several tons. The ballast problem is important with these ships. When her bows come up, the fuel shifts aft. We have to have big lateral tanks to correct these things.» Talking fluently and expertly, Largo led them back up the starboard passageway. They were about to pass the radio room when Bond said, «You said you had ship-to-shore. What else do you carry? The usual Marconi short and long wave, I suppose. Could I have a look? Radio has always fascinated me.»

Largo said politely, «Some other time, if you don't mind. I'm keeping the operator full time on met. reports. They're rather important to us at the moment.»

«Of course.»

They climbed up into the enclosed dome of the bridge, where Largo briefly explained the controls and led them out on the narrow deck space. «So there you are,» said Largo. «The good ship Disco Volante –the Flying Saucer. And she really does fly, I can assure you. I hope you and Mr. Larkin will come for a short cruise one of these days. For the present»–he smiled with a hint of a secret shared– «as you may have heard, we are rather busy.»

«Very exciting, this treasure business. Do you think you've got a good chance?»

«We like to think so.» Largo was deprecating. «I only wish I could tell you more.» He waved an apologetic hand. «Unfortunately, as they say, my lips are sealed. I hope you will understand.»

«Yes, of course. You have your shareholders to consider. I only wish I was one so that I could come along. I suppose there's not room for another investor?»

«Alas, no. The issue, as they say, is fully subscribed. It would have been very pleasant to have had you with us.» Largo held out a hand. «Well, I see that Mr. Larkin has been looking anxiously at his watch during our brief tour. We must not keep Mr. Christie waiting any longer. It has been a great pleasure to meet you, Mr. Bond. And you, Mr. Larkin.»

With a further exchange of courtesies they went down the ladder to the waiting launch and got under way. There was a last wave from Mr. Largo before he vanished through the hatch to the bridge.

They sat in the stern well away from the boatman. Leiter shook his head. «Absolutely negative. Reaction around the engine room and the radio room, but that's normal. It was all normal, damnably normal. What did you make of him and the whole setup?»

«Same as you–damned normal. He looks what he says he is, and behaves that way. Not much crew about, but the ones we saw were either ordinary crew or wonderful actors. Only two small things stuck me. There was no way down to the hold that I could see, but of course it could have been a manhole under the passage carpet. But then how do you get the stores he talked of down there? And there's the hell of a lot of space in that hold even if I don't know much about naval architecture. I'll do a check with the oiling wharf through the customs people and see just how much fuel he does carry. Then it's odd that we didn't see any of these shareholders. It was around three o'clock when we went on board and most of them may have been having siestas. But surely not all nineteen of them. What do they do in their cabins all the time? Another small thing. Did you notice that Largo didn't smoke and that there was no trace of tobacco smell anywhere in the ship? That's odd. Around forty men and not one of them is a smoker. If one had anything else to go on one would say that wasn't coincidence but discipline. The real pros don't drink or smoke. But I admit it's a damned long shot. Notice the Decca Navigator and the echo-sounder? Pretty expensive bits of equipment, both of them. Fairly normal on a big yacht, of course, but I'd have expected Largo to point them out when he was showing us the bridge. Rich men are proud of their toys. But that's only clutching at straws. I'd have said the whole outfit's as clean as a whistle if it wasn't for all that missing space we weren't shown. That talk about fuel and ballast sounded a bit glib to me. What do you think?»

«Same as you. There's at least half of that ship we didn't see. But then again there's a perfectly good answer to that. He may have got a stack of secret treasure-hunting gear down there he doesn't want anyone to see. Remember that merchant ship off Gibraltar during the war? The Italian frogmen used it as a base. Big sort of trapdoor affair cut in the hull below the water line. I suppose he hasn't got something like that?»

Bond looked sharply at Leiter. «The Olterra . One of the blackest marks against Intelligence during the whole war.» He paused. «The Disco was anchored in about forty feet of water. Supposing they'd got the bombs buried in the sand below her. Would your Geiger counter have registered?»

«Doubt it. I've got an underwater model and we could go and have a sniff round when it gets dark. But really, James»–Leiter frowned impatiently–»aren't we getting a bit off beam–seeing burglars under the bed? We've got damn-all to go on. Largo's a powerful-looking piratical sort of chap, probably a bit of a crook where women are concerned. But what the hell have we got against him? Have you put a Trace through on him and on these shareholders and the crew members?»

«Yes. Put them all on the wire from Government House, Urgent Rates. We should get an answer by this evening. But look here, Felix.» Bond's voice was stubborn. «There's a damned fast ship with a plane and forty men no one knows anything about. There's not another group or even an individual in the area who looks in the least promising. All right, so the outfit looks all right and its story seems to stand up. But just supposing the whole thing was a phony–a damned good one of course, but then so it ought to be with all that's at stake. Take another look at the picture. These so-called shareholders all arrive just in time for June third. On that night the Disco goes to sea and stays out till morning. Just supposing she rendezvous'd that plane in shallow water somewhere. Just suppose she picked up the bombs and put them away–in the sand under the ship, if you like. Anyway, somewhere safe and convenient. Just suppose all that and what sort of a picture do you get?»

«A B picture so far as I'm concerned, James.» Leiter shrugged resignedly. «But I guess there's just enough to make it a lead.» He laughed sardonically. «But I'd rather shoot myself than put it in tonight's report. If we're going to make fools of ourselves, we'd better do it well out of sight and sound of our chiefs. So what's on your mind? What comes next?»

«While you get our communications going, I'm going to check with the oiling wharf. Then we'll call up this Domino girl and try and get ourselves asked for a drink and have a quick look at Largo's shore base–this Palmyra. Then we go to the Casino and look over the whole of Largo's group. And then»–Bond looked stubbornly at Leiter –»I'm going to borrow a good man from the Police Commission to give me a hand, put on an aqualung, and go out and have a sniff round the Disco with your other Geiger machine.»

Leiter said laconically, «Destry Rides Again! Well, I'll go along with that, James. Just for old times' sake. But don't go and stub your toe on a sea urchin or anything. I see there are free cha-cha lessons in the ballroom of the Royal Bahamian tomorrow. We've got to keep fit for those. I guess there'll be nothing else in this trip for my memory book.»

Back in the hotel, a dispatch rider from Government House was waiting for Bond. He saluted smartly, handed over an O.H.M.S. envelope, and got Bond's signed receipt in exchange. It was a cable from the Colonial Office «Personal to the Governor.» The text was prefixed PROBOND. The cable read: «YOUR 1107 RECORDS HAVE NOTHING REPEAT NOTHING ON THESE NAMES STOP INFORMATIVELY ALL STATIONS REPORT NEGATIVELY ON OPERATION THUNDERBALL STOP WHAT HAVE you QUERY.» The message was signed «PRISM,» which meant that M had approved it.

Bond handed the cable to Leiter.

Leiter read it. He said, «See what I mean? We're on a bum steer. This is a thumb-twiddler. See you later in the Pineapple Bar for a dry martini that's half a jumbo olive. I'll go send a postcard to Washington and asked them to send down a couple of WAVES. We're going to have time on our hands.»

14. Sour Martinis

As it turned out, the first half of Bond's program for the evening went by the board. On the telephone Domino Vitali said that it would not be convenient for them to see the house that evening. Her guardian and some of his friends were coming ashore. Yet it was indeed possible that they might meet at the Casino that evening. She would be dining on board and the Disco would then sail round and anchor off the Casino. But how would she be able to recognize him in the Casino? She had a very poor memory for faces. Would he perhaps wear a flower in his buttonhole or something?

Bond had laughed. He said that would be all right. He would remember her by her beautiful blue eyes. They were unforgettable. And the blue rinse that matched them. He had put the receiver down halfway through the amused, sexy chuckle. He suddenly wanted to see her again very much.

But the movement of the ship altered his plans for the better. It would be much easier to reconnoitre her in the harbor. It would be a shorter swim and he would be able to go into the water under cover of the harbor police wharf. Equally, with her anchorage empty, it would be all the easier to survey the area where she had been lying. But if Largo moved the yacht about so nonchalantly was it likely the bombs, if there were any, would be hidden at the anchorage? If they were, surely the Disco would stand watch over them. Bond decided to put a decision aside until he had more and more expert information about the ship's hull.

He sat in his room and wrote his negative report to M. He read it through. It would be a depressing signal to get. Should he say anything about the wisp of a lead he was working on? No. Not until he had something solid. Wishful intelligence, the desire to please or reassure the recipient, was the most dangerous commodity in the whole realm of secret information. Bond could imagine the reaction in Whitehall where the Thunderball war room would be ready, anxious to grasp at straws. M's careful «I think we may conceivably have got a lead in the Bahamas. Absolutely nothing definite, but this particular man doesn't often go wrong on these things. Yes, certainly I'll check back and see if we can get a follow-up.» And the buzz would get around: «M's on to something. Agent of his thinks he's got a lead. The Bahamas. Yes, I think we'd better tell the P.M.» Bond shuddered. The MOST IMMEDIATES would pour in to him: «Elucidate your 1806.» «Flash fullest details.» «Premier wants detailed grounds for your 1806.» There would be no end to the flood. Leiter would get the same from C.I.A. The whole place would be in an uproar. Then, in answer to Bond's tatty little fragments of gossip and speculation, there would come the blistering: «Surprised you should take this flimsy evidence seriously.» «Futurely confine your signals to facts,» and, the final degradation, «View speculative nature your 1806 and subsequents comma future signals must repeat must be joint and countersigned by CIA representative.»

Bond wiped his forehead. He unlocked the case containing his cipher machine, transposed his text, checked it again, and went off to Police Headquarters, where Leiter was sitting at his keyboard, the sweat of concentration pouring down his neck. Ten minutes later Leiter took off his earphones and handed over to Bond. He mopped his face with an already drenched handkerchief. «First it's sunspots, and I had to swap over to the emergency wavelength. There I found they'd put a baboon on the other end–you know, one of the ones that can write the whole of Shakespeare if you leave him at it long enough.» He angrily waved several pages of cipher groups. «Now I've got to unscramble all this. Probably from Accounts about how much extra income tax this sunshine trip will cost me.» He sat down at a table and began cranking away at his machine.

Bond put his short message over quickly. He could see it being punched out on the tapes in one of those busy rooms on the eighth floor, going to the supervisor, being marked «Personal for M, copy to OO Section and Records,» then another girl hurrying off down the passage with the flimsy yellow forms on a clip file. He queried whether there was anything for him and signed off. He left Leiter and went down to the Commissioner's room.

Harling was sitting at his desk with his coat off, dictating to a police sergeant. He dismissed him, pushed a box of cigarettes over his desk to Bond, and lit one himself. He smiled quizzically. «Any progress?»

Bond told him that the Trace on the Largo group had been negative and that they had called on Largo and gone over the Disco with a Geiger counter. This also had been negative. Bond still wasn't satisfied. He told the Commissioner what he wanted to know about the fuel capacity of the Disco and the exact location of the fuel tanks. The Commissioner nodded amiably and picked up the telephone. He asked for a Sergeant Molony of the Harbor Police. He cradled the receiver and explained, «We check all fueling. This is a narrow harbor crammed with small craft, deep-sea fishing boats, and so on. Quite a fire hazard if something went wrong. We like to know what everyone is carrying and whereabouts in the ship. Just in case there's some fire-fighting to be done or we want a particular ship to get out of range in a hurry.» He went back to the telephone. «Sergeant Molony?» He repeated Bond's questions, listened, said thank-you, and put the receiver down. «She carries a maximum of five hundred gallons of Diesel. Took that amount on on the afternoon of June 2nd. She also carries about forty gallons of lubricating oil and a hundred gallons of drinking water–all carried amidships just forrard of the engine room. That what you want?»

This made nonsense of Largo's talk of lateral tanks and the difficult ballast problem and so forth. Of course he could have wanted to keep some secret treasure-hunting gear out of sight of the visitors, but at least there was something on board he wanted to hide, and, for all his show of openness, it was now established that Mr. Largo might be a rich treasure hunter, but he was also an unreliable witness. Now Bond's mind was made up. It was the hull of the ship he wanted to have a look at. Leiter's mention of the Olterra had been a long shot, but it just might pay off.

Bond passed on a guarded version of his thoughts to the Commissioner. He told him where the Disco would be lying that night. Was there on the force a totally reliable man who could give him a hand with his underwater recce, and was there a sound aqualung, fully charged, available?

Harling gently asked if this was wise. He didn't exactly know the laws of trespass, but these seemed to be good citizens and they were certainly good spenders. Largo was very popular with everyone. Any kind of scandal, particularly if the police were involved, would create the hell of a stink in the Colony.

Bond said firmly, «I'm sorry, Commissioner. I quite see your point. But these risks have to be run and I've got a job to do. Surely the Secretary of State's instructions are sufficient authority,» Bond fired his broadside. «I could get specific orders from him, or from the Prime Minister for the matter of that, in about an hour if you feel it's necessary.»

The Commissioner shook his head. He smiled. «No need to use the big guns, Commander. Of course you shall have what you want. I was just giving you the local reaction. I'm sure the Governor would have given you the same warning. This is a small puddle here. We're not used to the crash treatment from Whitehall. No doubt we'll get used to it if this flap last long enough. Now then. Yes, we've got plenty of what you want. We've got twenty men in the Harbor Salvage Unit. Have to. You'd be surprised how often a small boat gets wrecked in the fairway, just where some cruise ship's going to anchor. And of course there's the occasional body. I'll have Constable Santos assigned to you. Splendid chap. Native of Eleuthera, where he used to win all the swimming prizes. He'll have the gear you want where you want it. Now just give me the details. . . .»

Back in his hotel, Bond took a shower, swallowed a double bourbon old-fashioned, and threw himself down on his bed. He felt absolutely beat–the plane trip, the heat, the nagging sense that he was making a fool of himself in front of the Commissioner, in front of Leiter, in front of himself, added to the dangers, and probably futile ones at that, of this ugly night swim, had built up tensions that could only be eased by sleep and solitude. He went out like a light–to dream of Domino being pursued by a shark with dazzling white teeth that suddenly became Largo, Largo who turned on him with those huge hands. They were coming closer, they reached slowly for him, they had him by the shoulder. . . . But then the bell rang for the end of the round, and went on ringing.

Bond reached out a drugged hand for the receiver. It was Leiter. He wanted that martini with the jumbo olive. It was nine o'clock. What the hell was Bond doing? Did he want someone to help with the zipper?

The Pineapple Room was paneled in bamboo carefully varnished against termites. Wrought-iron pineapples on the tables and against the wall contained segments of thick red candle, and more light was provided by illuminated aquaria let into the walls and by ceiling lights enclosed in pink glass starfish. The Vinylite banquettes were in ivory white and the barman and the two waiters wore scarlet satin calypso shirts with their black trousers.

Bond joined Leiter at a corner table. They both wore white dinner jackets with their dress trousers. Bond had pointed up his rich, property-seeking status with a wine-red cummerbund. Leiter laughed. «I nearly tied a gold-plated bicycle chain round my waist in case of trouble, but I remembered just in time that I'm a peaceful lawyer. I suppose it's right that you should get the girls on this assignment. I suppose I just stand by and arrange the marriage settlement and later the alimony. Waiter!»

Leiter ordered two dry martinis. «Just watch,» he said sourly. The martinis arrived. Leiter took one look at them and told the waiter to send over the barman. When the barman came, looking resentful, Leiter said, «My friend, I asked for a martini and not a soused olive.» He picked the olive out of the glass with the cocktail stick. The glass, that had been three-quarters full, was now half full. Leiter said mildly, «This was being done to me while the only drink you knew was milk. I'd learned the basic economics of your business by the time you'd graduated to Coca-Cola. One bottle of Gordon's gin contains sixteen true measures–double measures, that is, the only ones I drink. Cut the gin with three ounces of water and that makes it up to twenty-two. Have a jigger glass with a big steal in the bottom and a bottle of these fat olives and you've got around twenty-eight measures. Bottle of gin here costs only two dollars retail, let's say around a dollar sixty wholesale. You charge eighty cents for a martini, a dollar sixty for two. Same price as a whole bottle of gin. And with your twenty-eight measures to the bottle, you've still got twenty-six left. That's a clear profit on one bottle of gin of around twenty-one dollars. Give you a dollar for the olives and the drop of vermouth and you've still got twenty dollars in your pocket. Now, my friend, that's too much profit, and if I could be bothered to take this martini to the management and then to the Tourist Board, you'd be in trouble. Be a good chap and mix us two large dry martinis without olives and with some slices of lemon peel separate. Okay? Right, then we're friends again.»

The barman's face had run through indignation, respect, and then the sullenness of guilt and fear. Reprieved, but clutching at his scraps of professional dignity, he snapped his fingers for the waiter to take away the glasses. «Okay, suh. Whatever you says. But we've pot plenty overheads here and the majority of customers they doan complain.»

Leiter said, «Well, here's one who's dry behind the ears. A good barman should learn to be able to recognize the serious drinker from the status-seeker who wants just to be seen in your fine bar.»

«Yassuh.» The barman moved away with Negro dignity.

Bond said, «You got those figures right, Felix? I always knew one got clipped, but I thought only about a hundred per cent–not four or five.»

«Young man, since I graduated from Government Service to Pinkertons, the scales have dropped from my eyes. The cheating that goes on in hotels and restaurants is more sinful than all the rest of the sin in the world. Anyone in a tuxedo before seven in the evening is a crocodile, and if he couldn't take a good bite at your pocketbook he'd take a good bite at your ear. The same goes for the rest of the consumer business, even when it's not wearing a tuxedo. Sometimes it gets me real mad to have to eat and drink the muck you get and then see what you're charged for it. Look at our damned lunch today. Six, seven bucks with fifteen per cent added for what's called service. And then the waiter hangs about for another fifty cents for riding up in the elevator with the stuff. Hell»–Leiter ran an angry hand through his mop of straw hair–»just don't let's talk about it. I'm fit to bust a gut when I think about it.»

The drinks came. They were excellent. Leiter calmed down and ordered a second round. He said, «Now let's get angry about something else.» He laughed curtly. «Guess I'm just sore at being back in Government Service again watching all the taxpayers' money going down the drain on this wild goose chase. Mark you, James»–there was apology in Leiter's voice–»I'm not saying this whole operation isn't a true bill, hell of a –– mess in fact, but what riles me is that we should be a couple of arse-end Charlies stuck down on this sand spit while the other guys have got the hot spots–you know, places where something really may be happening–or at least likely to happen. Tell you the truth, I felt like a damned fool gumshoeing around that feller's yacht this afternoon with my little Geiger toy.» He looked keenly at Bond. «You don't find you grow out of these things? I mean it's all right when there's a war on. But it seems kinda childish when Peace is bustin' out all over.»

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

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

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

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

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

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

«A submarine could do it– just lay one of the bombs offshore through a torpedo tube. Or a sailing dinghy, for the matter of that. Apparently exploding these things is no problem so long as they recovered all the parts from the plane. Apparently you'd just have to insert some kind of fuse thing in the right place between the T.N.T. and the plutonium, and screw the impact fuse off the nose and fit a time fuse that would give you time to get a hundred miles away.» Bond added casually, «Have to have an expert who knows the drill of course, but the trip would be no problem for the Disco , for instance. She could lay the bomb off Grand Bahama at midnight and be back at anchor off Palmyra by breakfast time.» He smiled. «See what I mean? It all adds up.»

«Nuts,» said Leiter succinctly. «You'll have to do better than that if you want my blood pressure to go up. Anyway, let's get the hell out of here and go have ourselves some eggs and bacon in one of those clip joints on Bay Street. It'll cost us twenty dollars plus tax, but the Manta probably burns that every time her screws turn full circle. Then we'll go along to the Casino and see if Mr. Fuchs or Signor Pontecorvo is sitting beside Largo at the blackjack table.»

15. Cardboard Hero

The Nassau Casino is the only legal casino on British soil anywhere in the world. How this is justified under the laws of the Commonwealth no one can quite figure. It is leased each year to a Canadian gambling syndicate and their operating profits in the smart winter season are estimated to average around $100,000. The only games played are roulette, with two zeros instead of one, which increases the take to the house from the European 3.6 to a handsome 5.4; blackjack, or 21, on which the house makes between 6 and 7 per cent; and one table of chemin de fer , whose cagnotte yields a modest 5 per cent. The operation is run as a club in a handsome private house on West Bay Street and there is a pleasant dance and supper room with a three-piece combo that plays old favorites in strict time, and a lounge bar. It is a well-run, elegant place that deserves its profit.

The Governor's A.D.C. had presented Bond and Leiter with membership cards, and after they had had coffee and a stinger at the bar they separated and went to the tables.

Largo was playing chemin de fer . He had a fat pile of hundred-dollar plaques in front of him and half a dozen of the big yellow thousand-dollar biscuits. Domino Vitali sat behind him chain-smoking and watching the play. Bond observed the game from a distance. Largo was playing expansively, bancoing whenever he could and letting his own banks run. He was winning steadily, but with excellent manners, and by the way people joked with him and applauded his coups he was obviously a favorite in the Casino. Domino, in black with a square-cut neckline and with one large diamond on a thin chain at her throat, was looking morose and bored. The woman on Largo's right, having bancoed him three times and lost, got up and left the table. Bond went quickly across the room and slid into the empty place. It was a bank of eight hundred dollars–the round sum being due to Largo making up the cagnotte after each play.

It is good for the banker when he has got past the third banco. It often means the bank is going to run. Bond knew this perfectly well. He was also painfully aware that his total capital was only one thousand dollars. But the fact that everyone was so nervous of Largo's luck made him bold. And, after all, the table has no memory. Luck, he told himself, is strictly for the birds. He said, «Banco.»

«Ah, my good friend Mr. Bond.» Largo held out a hand. «Now we have the big money coming to the table. Perhaps I should pass the bank. The English know how to play at railway trains. But still»– he smiled charmingly–»if I have to lose I would certainly like to lose to Mr. Bond.»

The big brown hand gave the shoe a soft slap. Largo eased out the pink tongue of playing card and moved it across the baize to Bond. He took one for himself and then pressed out one more for each of them. Bond picked up his first card and flicked it face up into the middle of the table. It was a nine, the nine of diamonds. Bond glanced sideways at Largo. He said, «That is always a good start–so good that I will also face my second card.» He casually flicked it out to join the nine. It turned over in mid-air and fell besides the nine. It was a glorious ten, the ten of spades. Unless Largo's two cards also added up to nine or nineteen, Bond had won.

Largo laughed, but the laugh had a hard edge to it. «You certainly make me try,» he said gaily. He threw his cards to follow Bond's. They were the eight of hearts and the king of clubs. Largo had lost by a pip–two naturals, but one just better than the other, the crudest way to lose. Largo laughed hugely. «Somebody had to be second,» he said to the table at large. «What did I say? The English can pull what they like out of the shoe.»

The croupier pushed the chips across to Bond. Bond made a small pile of them. He gestured at the heap in front of Largo: «So, it seems, can the Italians. I told you this afternoon we should go into partnership.»

Largo laughed delightedly. «Well, let's just try once again. Put in what you have won and I will banco it in partnership with Mr. Snow on your right. Yes, Mr. Snow?»

Mr. Snow, a tough-looking European who, Bond remembered, was one of the shareholders, agreed. Bond put in the eight hundred and they each put in four against him. Bond won again, this time with a six against a five for the table–once more by one point.

Largo shook his head mournfully. «Now indeed we have seen the writing on the wall. Mr. Snow, you will have to continue alone. This Mr. Bond has green fingers against me, I surrender.»

Now Largo was smiling only with his mouth. Mr. Snow suivied and pushed forward sixteen hundred dollars to cover Bond's stake. Bond thought: I have made sixteen hundred dollars in two coups, over five hundred pounds. And it would be fun to pass the bank and for the bank to go down on the next hand. He withdrew his stake and said, « La main passe .» There was a buzz of comment. Largo said dramatically, «Don't do it to me! Don't tell me the bank's going to go down on the next hand! If it does I shoot myself. Okay, okay, I will buy Mr. Bond's bank and we will see.» He threw some plaques out on to the table–sixteen hundred dollars' worth.

And Bond heard his own voice say banco! He was bancoing his own bank–telling Largo that he had done it to him once, then twice, and now he was going to do it, inevitably, again!

Largo turned round to face Bond. Smiling with his mouth, he narrowed his eyes and looked carefully, with a new curiosity, at Bond's face. He said quietly, «But you are hunting me, my dear fellow. You are pursuing me. What is this? Vendetta?»

Bond thought: I will see if an association of words does something to him. He said, «When I came to the table I saw a spectre.» He said the word casually, with no hint at double meaning.

The smile came off Largo's face as if he had been slapped. It was at once switched on again, but now the whole face was tense, strained, and the eyes had gone watchful and very hard. His tongue came out and touched his lips. «Really? What do you mean?»

Bond said lightly, «The spectre of defeat. I thought your luck was on the turn. Perhaps I was wrong.» He gestured at the shoe. «Let's see.»

The table had gone quiet. The players and spectators felt that a tension had come between these two men. Suddenly there was the smell of enmity where before there had been only jokes. A glove had been thrown down, by the Englishman. Was it about the girl? Probably. The crowd licked its lips.

Largo laughed sharply. He stitched gaiety and bravado back on his face. «Aha!» His voice was boisterous again. «My friend wishes to put the evil eye upon my cards. We have a way to deal with that where I come from.» He lifted a hand, and with only the first and little fingers outstretched in a fork, he prodded once, like a snake striking toward Bond's face. To the crowd it was a playful piece of theater, but Bond, within the strong aura of the man's animal magnetism, felt the ill temper, the malevolence behind the old Mafia gesture.

Bond laughed good-naturedly. «That certainly put the hex on me. But what did it do to the cards? Come on, your spectre against my spectre!»

Again the look of doubt came over Largo's face. Why again the use of this word? He gave the shoe a hefty slap. «All right, my friend. We are wrestling the best of three falls. Here comes the third.»

Quickly his first two fingers licked out the four cards. The table had hushed. Bond faced his pair inside his hand. He had a total of five–a ten of clubs and a five of hearts. Five is a marginal number. One can either draw or not. Bond folded the cards face down on the table. He said, with the confident look of a man who has a six or a seven, «No card, thank you.»

Largo's eyes narrowed as he tried to read Bond's face. He turned up his cards, flicked them into the middle of the table with a gesture of disgust. He also had a count of five. Now what was he to do? Draw or not draw? He looked again at the quiet smile of confidence on Bond's face–and drew. It was a nine, the nine of spades. By drawing another card instead of standing on his five and equaling Bond, he had drawn and now had a four to Bond's five.

Impassively Bond turned up his cards. He said, «I'm afraid you should have killed the evil eye in the pack, not in me.»

There was a buzz of comment round the table. «But if the Italian had stood on his five . . .» «I always draw on a five.» «I never do.» «It was bad luck.» «No, it was bad play.»

Now it was an effort for Largo to keep the snarl off his face. But he managed it, the forced smile lost its twist, the balled fists relaxed. He took a deep breath and held out his hand to Bond. Bond took it, folding his thumb inside his palm just in case Largo might give him a bone-crusher with his vast machine tool of a hand. But it was a firm grasp and no more. Largo said, «Now I must wait for the shoe to come round again. You have taken all my winnings. I have a hard evening's work ahead of me just when I was going to take my niece for a drink and a dance.» He turned to Domino. «My dear, I don't think you know Mr. Bond, except on the telephone. I'm afraid he has upset my plans. You must find someone else to squire you.»

Bond said, «How do you do. Didn't we meet in the tobacconist's this morning?»

The girl screwed up her eyes. She said indifferently, «Yes? It is possible. I have such a bad memory for faces.»

Bond said, «Well, could I give you a drink? I can just afford even a Nassau drink now, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Largo. And I have finished here. This sort of thing can't last. I mustn't press my luck.»

The girl got up. She said ungraciously, «If you have nothing better to do.» She turned to Largo: «Emilio, perhaps if I take this Mr. Bond away, your luck will turn again. I will be in the supper room having caviar and champagne. We must try and get as much of your funds as we can back in the family.»

Largo laughed. His spirits had returned. He said, «You see, Mr. Bond, you are out of the frying pan into the fire. In Dominetta's hands you may not fare so well as in mine. See you later, my dear fellow. I must now get back to the salt mines where you have consigned me.»

Bond said, «Well, thanks for the game. I will order champagne and caviar for three. My spectre also deserves his reward.» Wondering again whether the shadow that flickered in Largo's eyes at the word had more significance than Italian superstition, he got up and followed the girl between the crowded tables to the supper room. Domino made for a shadowed table in the farthest corner of the room. Walking behind her, Bond had noticed for the first time she had the smallest trace of a limp. He found it endearing, a touch of childish sweetness beneath the authority and blatant sex appeal of a girl to whom he had been inclined to award that highest, but toughest, French title–a courtisane de marque .

When the Clicquot rosé and fifty dollars' worth of Beluga caviar came–anything less, he had commented to her, would be no more than a spoonful–he asked her about the limp. «Did you hurt yourself swimming today?»

She looked at him gravely. «No. I have one leg an inch shorter than the other. Does it displease you?»

«No. It's pretty. It makes you something of a child.» «Instead of a hard old kept woman. Yes?» Her eyes challenged him.

«Is that how you see yourself?»

«It's rather obvious isn't it? Anyway, it's what everyone in Nassau thinks.» She looked him squarely in the eyes, but with a touch of pleading.

«Nobody's told me that. Anyway, I make up my own mind about men and women. What's the good of other people's opinions? Animals don't consult each other about other animals. They look and sniff and feel. In love and hate, and everything in between, those are the only tests that matter. But people are unsure of their own instincts. They want reassurance. So they ask someone else whether they should like a particular person or not. And as the world loves bad news, they nearly always get a bad answer–or at least a qualified one. Would you like to know what I think of you?»

She smiled. «Every woman likes to hear about herself. Tell me, but make it sound true, otherwise I shall stop listening.»

«I think you're a young girl, younger than you pretend to be, younger than you dress. I think you were carefully brought up, in a red-carpet sort of way, and then the red carpet was suddenly jerked away from under your feet and you were thrown more or less into the street. So you picked yourself up and started to work your own way back to the red carpet you had got used to. You were probably fairly ruthless about it. You had to be. You only had a woman's weapons and you probably used them pretty coolly. I expect you used your body. It would be a wonderful asset. But in using it to get what you wanted, your sensibilities had to be put aside. I don't expect they're very far underground. They certainly haven't atrophied. They've just lost their voice because you wouldn't listen to them. You couldn't afford to listen to them if you were to get back on that red carpet and have the things you wanted. And now you've got the things.» Bond touched the hand that lay on the banquette between them. «And perhaps you've almost had enough of them.» He laughed. «But I mustn't get too serious. Now about the smaller things. You know all about them, but just for the record, you're beautiful, sexy, provocative, independent, self-willed, quick-tempered, and cruel.» She looked at him thoughtfully. «There's nothing very clever about all that. I told you most of it. You know something about Italian women. But why do you say I'm cruel?»

«If I was gambling and I took a knock like Largo did and I had my woman, a woman, sitting near me watching, and she didn't give me one word of comfort or encouragement I would say she was being cruel. Men don't like failing in front of their women.»

She said impatiently, «I've had to sit there too often and watch him show off. I wanted you to win. I cannot pretend. You didn't mention my only virtue. It's honesty. I love to the hilt and I hate to the hilt. At the present time, with Emilio, I am halfway. Where we were lovers, we are now good friends who understand each other. When I told you he was my guardian, I was telling a white lie. I am his kept woman. I am a bird in a gilded cage. I am fed up with my cage and tired of my bargain.» She looked at Bond defensively. «Yes, it is cruel for Emilio. But it is also human. You can buy the outside of the body, but you cannot buy what is inside–what people call the heart and the soul. But Emilio knows that. He wants women for use. Not for love. He has had thousands in this way. He knows where we both stand. He is realistic. But it is becoming more difficult to keep to my bargain–to, to, let's call it sing for my supper.»

She stopped abruptly. She said, «Give me some more champagne. All this silly talking has made me thirsty. And I would like a packet of Players»–she laughed «–Please, as they say in the advertisements. I am fed up with just smoking smoke. I need my Hero.» Bond bought a packet from the cigarette girl. He said, «What's that about a hero?»

She had entirely changed. Her bitterness had gone, and the lines of strain on her face. She had softened. She was suddenly a girl out for the evening. «Ah, you don't know! My one true love! The man of my dreams. The sailor on the front of the packet of Players. You have never thought about him as I have.» She came closer to him on the banquette and held the packet under his eyes. «You don't understand the romance of this wonderful picture–one of the great masterpieces of the world. This man»–she pointed–»was the first man I ever sinned with. I took him into the woods, I loved him in the dormitory, I spent nearly all my pocket money on him. In exchange he introduced me to the great world outside the Cheltenham Ladies College. He grew me up. He put me at ease with boys of my own age. He kept me company when I was lonely or afraid of being young. He encouraged me, gave me assurance. Have you never thought of the romance behind this picture? You see nothing, yet the whole of England is there! Listen.» She took his arm eagerly. «This is the story of Hero, the name on his cap badge. At first he was a young man, a powder monkey or whatever they called it, in that sailing ship behind his right ear. It was a hard time for him. Weevils in the biscuits, hit with marlinspikes and ropes' ends and things, sent up aloft to the top of all that rigging where the flag flies. But he persevered. He began to grow a mustache. He was fair-haired and rather too pretty.» She giggled. «He may even have had to fight for his virtue or whatever men call it, among all those hammocks. But you can see from his face–that line of concentration between his eyes–and from his fine head, that he was a man to get on.» She paused and swallowed a glass of champagne. The dimples were now deep holes in her cheeks. «Are you listening to me? You are not bored having to listen about my hero?»

«I'm only jealous. Go on.»

«So he went all over the world–to India, China, Japan, America. He had many girls and many fights with cutlasses and fists. He wrote home regularly–to his mother and to a married sister who lived at Dover. They wanted him to come home and meet a nice girl and get married. But he wouldn't. You see, he was keeping himself for a dream girl who looked rather like me. And then»–she laughed– «the first steamships came in and he was transferred to an ironclad–that's the picture of it on the right. And by now he was a bosun, whatever that is, and very important. And he saved up from his pay and instead of going out fighting and having girls he grew that lovely beard, to make himself look older and more important, and he set to with a needle and colored threads to make that picture of himself. You can see how well he did it–his first windjammer and his last ironclad with the lifebuoy as a frame. He only finished it when he decided to leave the Navy. He didn't really like steamships. In the prime of life, don't you agree? And even then he ran out of gold thread to finish the rope round the lifebuoy, so he just had to tail it off. There, you can see on the right where the rope crosses the blue line. So he came back home on a beautiful golden evening after a wonderful life in the Navy and it was so sad and beautiful and romantic that he decided that he would put the beautiful evening into another picture. So he bought a pub at Bristol with his savings and in the mornings before the pub opened he worked away until he had finished and there you can see the little sailing ship that brought him home from Suez with his duffel bag full of silks and seashells and souvenirs carved out of wood. And that's the Needles Lighthouse beckoning him in to harbor on that beautiful calm evening. Mark you»–she frowned–»I don't like that sort of bonnet thing he's wearing for a hat, and I'd have liked him to have put `H.M.S.' before the `Hero,' but you can see that would have made it lopsided and he wouldn't have been able to get all the `Hero' in. But you must admit it's the most terrifically romantic picture. I cut it off my first packet, when I smoked one in the lavatory and felt terribly sick, and kept it until it fell to pieces. Then I cut off a fresh one. I carried him with me always until things went wrong and I had to go back to Italy. Then I couldn't afford Players. They're too expensive in Italy and I had to smoke things called Nazionales.» Bond wanted to keep her mood. He said, «But what happened to the Hero's pictures? How did the cigarette people get hold of them?»

«Oh, well, you see one day a man with a stovepipe hat and a frock coat came into the Hero's pub with two small boys. Here.» She held the packet sideways. «Those are the ones, `John Player & Sons.' You see, it says that their Successors run the business now. Well they had one of the first motor cars, a Rolls Royce, and it had broken down outside the Hero's pub. The man in the stovepipe hat didn't drink, of course–those sort of people didn't, not the respectable merchants who lived near Bristol. So he asked for ginger beer and bread and cheese while his chauffeur mended the car. And the hero got it for them. And Mr. John Player and the boys all admired the two wonderful tapestry pictures hanging on the wall of the pub. Now this Mr. Player was in the tobacco and snuff business and cigarettes had just been invented and he wanted to start making them. But he couldn't for the life of him know what to call them or what sort of a picture to put on the packet. And he suddenly had a wonderful idea. When he got back to the factory he talked to his manager and the manager came along to the pub and saw the Hero and offered him a hundred pounds to let his two pictures be copied for the cigarette packet. And the Hero didn't mind and anyway he wanted just exactly a hundred pounds to get married on.» She paused. Her eyes were far away. «She was very nice, by the way, only thirty and a good plain cook and her young body kept him warm in bed until he died many years later. And she bore him two children, a boy and a girl. And the boy went into the Navy like his father. Well, anyway, Mr. Player wanted to have the Hero in the lifebuoy on one side of the packet and the beautiful evening on the other. But the manager pointed out that that would leave no room for all this»–she turned over the packet–»about `Rich, Cool,' and `Navy Cut Tobacco' and that extraordinary trademark of a doll's house swimming in chocolate fudge with Nottingham Castle written underneath. So then Mr. Player said, `Well then, we'll put one on top of the other.' And that's just exactly what they did and I must say I think it fits in very well, don't you? Though I expect the Hero was pretty annoyed at the mermaid being blanked out.»

«The mermaid?»

«Oh, yes. Underneath the bottom comer of the lifebuoy where it dips into the sea, the Hero had put a tiny mermaid combing her hair with one hand and beckoning him home with the other. That was supposed to be the woman he was going to find and marry. But you can see there wasn't room and anyway her breasts were showing and Mr. Player, who was a very strong Quaker, didn't think that was quite proper. But he made it up to the Hero in the end.»

«Oh, how did he do that?»

«Well you see the cigarettes were a great success. It was really the picture that did it. People decided that anything with a wonderful picture like that on the outside must be good and Mr. Player made a fortune and I expect his Successors did too. So when the Hera was getting old and hadn't got long to live, Mr. Player had a copy of the lifebuoy picture drawn by the finest artist of the day. It was just the same as the Hero's except that it wasn't in color and it showed him very much older, and he promised the Hero that this picture too would always be on his cigarette packets, only on the inside bit. Here.» She pushed out the cardboard container. «You see how old he looks? And one other thing, if you look closely, the flags on the two ships are flying at half mast. Rather sweet of Mr. Player, don't you think, to ask the artist for that. It meant that the Hero's first and last ship were remembering him. And Mr. Player and his two sons came and presented it to him just before he died. It must have made it much easier for him, don't you think?»

«It certainly must. Mr. Player must have been a very thoughtful man.»

The girl was slowly returning from her dreamland. She said in a different, rather prim voice, «Well, thank you anyway for having listened to the story. I know it's all a fairy tale. At least I suppose it is. But children are stupid in that way. They like to have something to keep under the pillow until they're quite grown up–a rag doll or a small toy or something. I know that boys are just the same. My brother hung on to a little metal charm his nanny had given him until he was nineteen. Then he lost it. I shall never forget the scenes he made. Even though he was in the Air Force by then and it was the middle of the war. He said it brought him luck.» She shrugged her shoulders. There was sarcasm in her voice as she said, «He needn't have worried. He did all right. He was much older than me, but I adored him. I still do. Girls always love crooks, particularly if they're their brother. He did so well that he might have done something for me. But he never did. He said that life was every man for himself. He said that his grandfather had been so famous as a poacher and a smuggler in the Dolomites that his was the finest tombstone among all the Petacchi graves in the graveyard at Bolzano. My brother said he was going to have a finer one still, and by making money the same way.» Bond held his cigarette steady. He took a long draw at it and let the smoke out with a quiet hiss. «Is your family name Petacchi, then?»

«Oh, yes. Vitali is only a stage name. It sounded better so I changed it. Nobody knows the other. I've almost forgotten it myself. I've called myself Vitali since I came back to Italy. I wanted to change everything.»

«What happened to your brother? What was his first name?» «Giuseppe. He went wrong in various ways. But he was a wonderful flyer. Last time I heard of him he'd been given some high-up job in Paris. Perhaps that'll make him settle down. I pray every night that it will. He's all I've got. I love him in spite of everything. You understand that?»

Bond stabbed out his cigarette in the ashtray. He called for the bill. He said, «Yes, I understand that.»

16. Swimming the Gantlet

The dark water below the police wharf sucked and kissed at the rusty iron stanchions. In the latticed shadows cast through the ironwork by the three-quarter moon, Constable Santos heaved the single aqualung cylinder up onto Bond's back and Bond secured the webbing at his waist so that it would not snarl the strap of Leiter's second Geiger counter, the underwater model. He fitted the rubber mouthpiece between his teeth and adjusted the valve release until the air supply was just right. He turned off the supply and took out the mouthpiece. The music of the steel band in the Junkanoo night club tripped gaily out over the water. It sounded like a giant spider dancing on a tenor xylophone.

Santos was a huge colored man, naked except for his swimming trunks, with pectoral muscles the size of dinner plates. Bond said, «What should I expect to see at this time of night? Any big fish about?»

Santos grinned. «Usual harbor stuff, sah. Some barracuda perhaps. Mebbe a shark. But they's lazy an' overfed with the refuse an muck from de drains. Dey won't trouble you–less you bleedin' that is. They'll be night-crawlin' things on the bottom–lobster, crab, mebbe a small pus-feller or two. The bottom's mostly seagrass on bits o' iron from wrecks an plenty of bottle and suchlike. Mucky, if you get me, sah. But the water's clear and you'll be hokay with this moon and the lights from the Disco to guide you. Tek you bout twelve, fifteen minute, I'da say. Funny ting. I been lookin' for an hour and dere's no watchman on deck an no one in the wheelhouse. An the bit o' breeze should hide you bubbles. Coulda give you an oxygen rebreather, but ah doan like dem tings. Them dangerous.»

«All right, let's go then. See you in about half an hour.» Bond felt for the knife at his waist, shifted the webbing, and put the mouthpiece between his teeth. He turned on the air and, his fins slapping on the muddy sand, walked down and into the water. There he bent down, spat into his mask to prevent it steaming up, washed it out, and adjusted it. Then he walked slowly on, getting used to the breathing. By the end of the wharf he was up to his ears. He quietly submerged and launched himself forward into an easy leg crawl, his hands along his flanks.

The mud shelved steeply and Bond kept on going down, until, at about forty feet, he was only a few inches above the bottom. He glanced at the big luminous figures on the dial of his watch–12:10. He untensed himself and put his legs into an easy, relaxed rhythm.

Through the roof of small waves the pale moonlight flickered on the gray bottom, and the refuse–motor tires, cans, bottles–cast black shadows. A small octopus, feeling his shock wave, turned from dark brown to pale gray and squeezed itself softly back into the mouth of the oil-drum that was its home. Sea flowers, the gelatinous polyps that grow out of the sand at night, whisked down their holes as Bond's black shadow touched them. Other tiny night things puffed thin jets of silt out of their small volcanoes in the mud as they felt the tremor of Bond's passage, and an occasional hermit crab snapped itself back into its borrowed shell. It was like traveling across a moon landscape, on and under which many mysterious creatures lived minute lives. Bond watched it all, carefully, as if he had been an underwater naturalist. He knew that was the way to keep nerves steady under the sea–to focus the whole attention on the people who lived there and not try to probe the sinister gray walls of mist for imaginary monsters.

The rhythm of his steady progress soon became automatic, and while Bond, keeping the moon at his right shoulder, held to his course, his mind reached back to Domino. So she was the sister of the man who probably highjacked the plane! Probably even Largo, if Largo was in fact involved in the plot, didn't know this. So what did the relationship amount to? Coincidence. It could he nothing else. Her whole manner was so entirely innocent. And yet it was one more thin straw to add to the meager pile that seemed in some indeterminate way to be adding up to Largo's involvement. And Largo's reaction at the word «spectre.» That could he put down to Italian superstition–or it could not. Bond had a deadly feeling that all these tiny scraps amounted to the tip of an iceberg–a few feet of ice pinnacle, with, below, a thousand tons of the stuff. Should he report? Or shouldn't he? Bond's mind boiled with indecision. How to put it? How to grade the intelligence so that it would reflect his doubts? How much to say and how much to leave out?

The extrasensory antennae of the human body, the senses left over from the jungle life of millions of years ago, sharpen unconsciously when man knows that he is on the edge of danger. Bond's mind was concentrating on something far away from his present risks, but beneath his conscious thoughts his senses were questing for enemies. Now suddenly the alarm was sounded by a hidden nerve–Danger! Danger! Danger!

Bond's body tensed. His hand went to his knife and his head swiveled sharply to the right–not to the left or behind him. His senses told him to look to the right.

A big barracuda, if it is twenty pounds or over, is the most fearsome fish in the sea. Clean and straight and malevolent, it is all hostile weapon, from the long snarling mouth in the cruel jaw that can open like a rattlesnake's to an angle of ninety degrees, along the blue and silver steel of the body to the lazy power of the tail fin that helps to make this fish one of the five fastest sprinters in the sea. This one, moving parallel with Bond, ten yards away just inside the wall of gray mist that was the edge of visibility, was showing its danger signals. The broad lateral stripes showed vividly–the angry hunting sign–the gold and black tiger's eye was on him, watchful, incurious, and the long mouth was open half an inch so that the moonlight glittered on the sharpest row of teeth in the ocean–teeth that don't bite at the flesh, teeth that tear out a chunk and swallow and then hit and scythe again.

Bond's stomach crawled with the ants of fear and his skin tightened at his groin. Cautiously he glanced at his watch. About three more minutes to go before he was due to come up with the Disco .

He made a sudden turn and attacked fast toward the great fish, flashing his knife in fast offensive lunges. The giant barracuda gave a couple of lazy wags of its tail and when Bond turned back on his course it also turned and resumed its indolent, sneering cruise, weighing him up, choosing which bit–the shoulder, the buttock, the foot–to take first.

Bond tried to recall what he knew about big predator fish, what he had experienced with them before. The first rule was not to panic, to be unafraid. Fear communicates itself to fish as it does to dogs and horses. Establish a quiet pattern of behavior and stick to it. Don't show confusion or act chaotically. In the sea, untidiness, ragged behavior, mean that the possible victim is out of control, vulnerable. So keep to a rhythm. A thrashing fish is everyone's prey. A crab or a shell thrown upside down by a wave is offering its underside to a hundred enemies. A fish on its side is a dead fish. Bond trudged rhythmically on, exuding immunity.

Now the pale moonscape changed. A meadow of soft seagrass showed up ahead. In the deep, slow currents it waved languidly, like deep fur. The hypnotic motion made Bond feel slightly seasick. Dotted sparsely in the grass were the big black footballs of dead sponges growing out of the sand like giant puffballs–Nassau's only export until a fungus had got at them and had killed the sponge crop as surely as myxomatosis has killed rabbits. Bond's black shadow flickered across the breathering lawn like a clumsy bat. To the right of his shadow, the thin black lance cast by the barracuda moved with quiet precision.

A dense mass of silvery small fry showed up ahead, suspended in midstream as if they had been bottled in aspic. When the two parallel bodies approached, the mass divided sharply, leaving wide channels for the two enemies, and then closing behind them into the phalanx they adopted for an illusory protection. Through the cloud of fish Bond watched the barracuda. It moved majestically on, ignoring the food around it as a fox creeping up on the chicken run will ignore the rabbits in the warren. Bond sealed himself in the armor of his rhythm, transmitting to the barracuda that he was a bigger, a more dangerous fish, that the barracuda must not be misled by the whiteness of the flesh.

Amongst the waving grass, the black barb of the anchor looked like another enemy. The trailing chain rose from the bottom and disappeared into the upper mists. Bond followed it up, forgetting the barracuda in his relief at hitting the target and in the excitement of what he might find.

Now he swam very slowly, watching the white explosion of the moon on the surface contract and define itself. Once he looked down. There was no sign of the barracuda. Perhaps the anchor and chain had seemed inimical. The long hull of the ship grew out of the upper mists and took shape, a great Zeppelin in the water. The folded mechanism of the hydrofoil looked ungainly, as if it did not belong. Bond clung for a moment to its starboard flange to get his bearings. Far down to his left, the big twin screws, bright in the moonlight, hung suspended, motionless but somehow charged with thrashing speed. Bond moved slowly along the hull toward them, staring upward for what he sought. He drew in his breath. Yes, it was there, the ridge of a wide hatch below the water line. Bond groped over it, measuring. About twelve feet square, divided down the center. Bond paused for a moment, wondering what was inside the closed doors. He pressed the switch of the Geiger counter and held the machine against the steel plates. He watched the dial of the meter on his left wrist. It trembled to show the machine was alive, but it registered only the fraction Leiter had told him to expect from the hull. Bond switched the thing off. So much for that. Now for home.

The clang beside his ear and the sharp impact against his left shoulder were simultaneous. Automatically, Bond sprang back from the hull. Below him the bright needle of the spear wavered slowly down into the depths. Bond whirled. The man, his black rubber suit glinting like armor in the moonlight, was pedaling furiously in the water while he thrust another spear down the barrel of the CO2 gun. Bond hurled himself toward him, flailing at the water with his fins. The man pulled back the loading lever and leveled the gun. Bond knew he couldn't make it. He was six strokes away. He stopped suddenly, ducked his head, and jackknifed down. He felt the small shock wave of the silent explosion of gas and something hit his foot. Now! He soared up below the man and scythed upward with his knife. The blade went in. He felt the black rubber against his hand. Then the butt of the gun hit him behind the ear and a white hand came down and scrabbled at his airpipe. Bond slashed wildly with the knife, his hand moving with terrifying slowness through the water. The point ripped something. The hand let go of the mask, but now Bond couldn't see. Again the butt of the gun crashed down on his head. Now the water was full of black smoke, heavy, stringy stuff that clung to the glass of his mask. Bond backed painfully, slowly away, clawing at the glass. At last it cleared. The black smoke was coming out of the man, out of his stomach. But the gun was coming up again slowly, agonizingly, as if it weighed a ton, and the bright sting of the spear showed at its mouth. Now the webbed feet were hardly stirring, but the man was sinking slowly down to Bond's level. Suspended straight in the water, he looked like one of those little celluloid figures in a Ptolemy jar that rise and fall gracefully with pressure on the rubber top to the jar. Bond couldn't get his limbs to obey. They felt like lead. He shook his head to clear it, but still his hands and flippers moved only half consciously, all speed gone. Now he could see the bared teeth round the other man's rubber mouthpiece. The gun was at his head, at his throat, at his heart. Bond's hands crept up his chest to protect him while his flippers moved sluggishly, like broken wings, below him.

And then, suddenly, the man was hurled toward Bond as if he had been kicked in the back. His arms spread in a curious gesture of embrace for Bond and the gun tumbled slowly away between them and disappeared. A puff of black blood spread out into the sea from behind the man's back and his hands wavered out and up in vague surrender while his head twisted on his shoulders to see what had done this to him.

And now, a few yards behind the man, shreds of black rubber hanging from its jaws, Bond saw the barracuda. It was lying broadside on, seven or eight feet of silver and blue torpedo, and round its jaws there was a thin mist of blood, the taste in the water that had triggered its attack.

Now the great tiger's eye looked coldly at Bond and then downward at the slowly sinking man. It gave a horrible yawning gulp to rid itself of the shreds of rubber, turned lazily three-quarters on, quivered in all its length, and dived like a bolt of white light. It hit the man on the right shoulder with wide-open jaws, shook him once, furiously, like a dog with a rat, and then backed away. Bond felt the vomit rising in his gorge like molten lava. He swallowed it down and slowly, as if in a dream, began swimming with languid, sleepy strokes away from the scene.

Bond had not gone many yards when something hit the surface to his left and the moonlight glinted on a silvery kind of egg that turned lazily over and over as it went down. It meant nothing to Bond, but two strokes later, he received a violent blow in the stomach that knocked him sideways. It also knocked sense into him, and he began to move fast through the water, at the same time planing downward toward the bottom. More buffets hit him in quick succession, but the grenades were bracketing the blood patch near the ship's hull and the shock waves of the explosions became less.

The bottom showed up–the friendly waving fur, the great black toadstools of the dead sponges and the darting shoals of small fish fleeing with Bond from the explosions. Now Bond swam with all his strength. At any moment a boat would be got over the side and another diver would go down. With any luck he would find no traces of Bond's visit and conclude that the underwater sentry had been killed by shark or barracuda. It would be interesting to see what Largo would report to the harbor police. Difficult to explain the necessity for an armed underwater sentry for a pleasure yacht in a peaceful harbor!

Bond trudged on across the shifting seagrass. His head ached furiously. Gingerly he put up a hand and felt the two great bruises. The skin felt intact. But for the cushion of water, the two blows with the butt of the gun would have knocked him out. As it was, he still felt half stunned and when he came to the end of the seagrass and to the soft white moon landscape with its occasional little volcano puffs from the sea worms he felt as if he was on the edge of delirium. Wild commotion at the edge of his field of vision shocked him out of the semi-trance. A giant fish, the barracuda, was passing him. It seemed to have gone mad. It was snaking wildly along, biting at its tail, its long body curling and snapping back in a jackknife motion, its mouth opening wide and shutting again in spasms. Bond watched it hurtle away into the gray mist. He felt somehow sorry to see the wonderful king of the sea reduced to this hideous jiggling automaton. There was something obscene about it, like the blind weaving of a punchy boxer before he finally crashes to the canvas. One of the explosions must have crushed a nerve center, wrecked some delicate balance mechanism in the fish's brain. It wouldn't last long. A greater predator than itself, a shark, would note the signs, the loss of symmetry that is suicide in the sea. He would follow for a while until the spasms slackened. Then the shark would make a short jabbing run. The barracuda would react sluggishly and that would be the end–in three great grunting bites, the head first and then the still jerking body. And the shark would cruise quietly on, its sickle mouth trailing morsels for the black and yellow pilot fish below his jaws and perhaps for the remora or two, the parasites that travel with the great host, that pick the shark's teeth when it is sleeping and the jaws are relaxed.

And now there were the gray-slimed motor tires, the bottles, the cans, and the scaffolding of the wharf. Bond slid over the shelving sand and knelt in the shallows, his head down, not capable of carrying the heavy aqualung up the beach, an exhausted animal ready to drop.

17. The Red-Eye Catacomb

Bond, putting on his clothes, dodged the comments of Constable Santos. It seemed there had been sort of underwater explosions, with eruptions on the surface, on the starboard side of the yacht. Several men had appeared on deck and there had been some kind of commotion. A boat had been lowered on the port side, out of sight of the shore. Bond said he knew nothing of these things. He had cracked his head against the side of the ship. Silly thing to do. He had seen what he had wanted to see and had then swum back. Entirely successful. The Constable had been a great help. Thank you very much and good night. Bond would be seeing the Commissioner in the morning.

Bond walked with careful steadiness up the side street to where he had parked Leiter's Ford. He got to the hotel and telephoned Leiter's room and together they drove to police headquarters. Bond described what had happened and what he had discovered. Now he didn't care what the consequences might be. He was going to make a report. It was eight a.m. in London and there were under forty hours to go to zero hour. All these straws added up to half a haystack. His suspicions were boiling like a pressure cooker. He couldn't sit on the lid any longer.

Leiter said decisively, «You do just that. And I'll file a copy to C.I.A and endorse it. What's more, I'm going to call up the Manta and tell her to get the hell over here.»

«You are?» Bond was amazed at this change of tune. «What's got into you all of a sudden?»

«Well, I was sculling around the Casino taking a good look at anyone I thought might be a shareholder or a treasure hunter. They were mostly in groups, standing around trying to put up the front of having a good time–sunshine holiday and all that. They weren't succeeding. Largo was doing all the work, being gay and boyish. The others looked like private dicks or the rest of the Torrio gang just after the St. Valentine Day massacre. Never seen such a bunch of thugs in my life–dressed up in tuxedos and smoking cigars and drinking champagne and all that–just a glass or two to show the Christmas spirit. Orders, I suppose. But all of them with that smell one gets to know in the Service, or in Pinkertons for the matter of that. You know, careful, cold-fish, thinking-of-something-else kinda look the pros have. Well, none of the faces meant anything to me until I came across a little guy with a furrowed brow and a big egghead with pebble glasses who looked like a Mormon who's got into a whorehouse by mistake. He was peering about nervously and every time one of these other guys spoke to him he blushed and said what a wonderful place it was and he was having a swell time. I got close enough to hear him say the same thing to two different guys. Rest of the time he just mooned around, sort of helpless and almost sucking a corner of his handkerchief, if you get me. Well that face meant something to me. I knew I'd seen it before somewhere. You know how it is. So after puzzling for a bit I went to the reception and told one of the guys behind the desk in a cheery fashion that I thought I'd located an old classmate who'd migrated to Europe, but I couldn't for the life of me remember his name. Very embarrassing as he seemed to recognize me. Would the guy help? So he came along and I pointed this feller out and he went back to his desk and went through the membership cards and came up with the one I wanted. Seemed he was a man called Traut, Emil Traut. Swiss passport. One of Mr. Largo's group from the yacht.» Leiter paused. «Well, I guess it was the Swiss passport that did it.» He turned to Bond. «Remember a fellow called Kotze, East German physicist? Came over to the West about five years ago and sang all he knew to the Joint Scientific Intelligence boys? Then he disappeared, thanks to a fat payment for the info, and went to ground in Switzerland. Well, James. Take my word for it. That's the same guy. The file went through my hands when I was still with C.I.A. doing desk work in Washington. All came back to me. It was one hell of a scoop at the time. Only saw his mug on the file, but there's absolutely no doubt about it. That man's Kotze. And now what the hell is a top physicist doing on board the Disco ? Fits, doesn't it?»

They had come to police headquarters. Lights burned only on the ground floor. Bond waited until they had reported to the duty sergeant and had gone up to their room before he answered. He stood in the middle of the room and looked at Leiter. He said, «That's the clincher, Felix. So now what do we do?»

«With what you got this evening, I'd pull the whole lot in on suspicion. No question at all.»

«Suspicion of what? Largo would reach for his lawyer and they'd be out in five minutes. Democratic processes of the law and so forth. And what single fact have we got that Largo couldn't dodge? All right, so Traut is Kotze. We're hunting for treasure, gentlemen, we need an expert mineralogist. This man offered his services. Said his name was Traut. No doubt he's still worried about the Russians getting after him. Next question? Yes, we've got an underwater compartment on the Disco . We're going to hunt treasure through it. Inspect it? Well, if you must. There you are gentlemen–underwater gear, skids, perhaps even a small bathyscaphe. Underwater sentry? Of course. People have spent six months trying to find out what we're after, how we're going to get it. We're professionals, gentlemen. We like to keep our secrets. And anyway, what was this Mr. Bond, this rich gentleman looking for a property in Nassau, doing underneath my ship in the middle of the night? Petacchi? Never heard of him. Don't care what Miss Vitali's family name was. Always known her as Vitali . . .» Bond made a throwaway gesture with one hand. «See what I mean? This treasure-hunting cover is perfect. It explains everything. And what are we left with? Largo pulls himself up to his full height and says, `Thanks gentlemen. So I may go now? And so I shall, within the hour. I shall find another base for my work and you will be hearing from my lawyers forthwith–wrongful detention and trespass. And good luck to your tourist trade, gentlemen.' « Bond smiled grimly. «See what I mean?»

Leiter said impatiently, «So what do we do? Limpet mine? Send her to the bottom–in error, so to speak?»

«No. We're going to wait.» At the expression on Leiter's face, Bond held up a hand. «We're going to send our report, in careful, guarded terms so we don't get an airborne division landing on Windsor Field. And we're going to say the Manta is all we need. And so it is. With her, we can keep tabs on the Disco just as we please. And we'll stay under cover, keep a hidden watch on the yacht and see what happens. At present we're not suspected. Largo's plan, if there is one, that is, and don't forget this treasure-hunting business still covers everything perfectly well, is going along all right. All he's got to do now is collect the bombs and make for Target No. 1 ready for zero hour in around thirty hours' time. We can do absolutely nothing to him until he's got one or both of those bombs on board or we catch him at their hiding place. Now, that can't be far away. Nor can the Vindicator, if she's hereabouts. So tomorrow we take that amphibian they've got for us and hunt the area inside a radius of a hundred miles. We'll hunt the seas and not the land. She must be in shoal water somewhere and damned well hidden. With this calm weather, we should be able to locate her–if she's here. Now, come on! Let's get those reports off and get some sleep. And say we're out of communication for ten hours. And disconnect your telephone when you get back to your room. However careful we are, this signal is going to set the Potomac on fire as well as the Thames.»

Six hours later, in the crystal light of early morning, they were out at Windsor Field and the ground crew was hauling the little Grumman Amphibian out of the hangar with a jeep. They had climbed on board and Leiter was gunning the engines when a uniformed motorcycle dispatch rider came driving uncertainly toward them across the tarmac.

Bond said, «Get going! Quick! Here comes paper work.»

Leiter released the brakes and taxied fast toward the single north-south runway. The radio crackled angrily. Leiter took a careful look over the sky. It was clear. He slowly pushed down on the joystick and the little plane snarled its way faster and faster down the concrete and, with a final bump, soared off over the low bush. The radio still crackled. Leiter reached up and switched it off.

Bond sat with the Admiralty chart on his lap. They were flying north. They had decided to start with the Grand Bahama group and have a first look at the possible area of Target No. 1. They flew at a thousand feet. Below them the Berry Islands were a necklace of brown spits set in cream and emerald and turquoise. «See what I mean?» said Bond. «You can see anything big through that water down to fifty feet. Anything as big as the Vindicator would have been spotted anywhere on any of the air routes. So I've marked off the areas where there's the minimum traffic. They'd have ditched somewhere well out of the way. Assuming, and it's the hell of an assumption, that, when the Disco made off to the southeast on the night of the third, it was a ruse, it'll be reasonable to hunt to the north and the west.

She was away eight hours. Two of those would have been at anchor doing the salvage work. That leaves six hours' sailing at around thirty knots. Cut an hour off for laying the false trail, and that leaves five. I've marked off an area from the Grand Bahamas down to south of the Bimini group. That fits–if anything fits.»

«Did you get on the the Commissioner?»

«Yes. He's going to have a couple of good men with day-and-night glasses keeping an eye on the Disco . If she moves from her Palmyra anchorage where she's due back at midday, and if we're not back in time, he'll have her shadowed by one of the Bahama Airways charter planes. I got him quite worried with just one or two bits of information. He wanted to go to the Governor with the story. I said not yet. He's a good man. Just doesn't want too much responsibility without someone else's okay. I used the P.M.'s name to keep him quiet until we get back. He'll play all right. When do you think the Manta could be here?»

«S'evening, I'd say.» Leiter's voice was uneasy. «I must have been drunk last night to have sent for her. Christ, we're creating one hell of a flap, James. It doesn't look too good in the cold light of dawn. Anyway, what the hell? There's Grand Bahama coming up dead ahead. Want me to give the rocket base a buzz? Prohibited flying area, but we might as well go in up to our ears while we're about it. Just listen to the bawling out we'll be getting in just a minute or two.» He reached up and switched on the radio.

They flew eastward along the fifty miles of beautiful coast toward what looked like a small city of aluminum hutments among which red and white and silver structures rose like small skyscrapers above the low roofs. «That's it,» said Leiter. «See the yellow warning balloons at the corners of the base? Warning to aircraft and fishermen. There's a flight test on this morning. Better get out to sea a bit and keep south. If it's a full test, they'll be firing toward Ascension Island–about five thousand miles east. Off the African coast. Don't want to get an Atlas missile up our backsides. Look over there to the left-sticking up like a pencil beside that red and white gantry! Atlas or a Titan–intercontinental. Or might be a prototype Polaris. The other two gantries'll be for Matador and Snark and perhaps your Thunderbird. That big gun thing, like a howitzer, that's the camera tracker. The two saucer-shaped reflectors are the radar screen. Golly! One of them's turning away toward us! We're going to get hell in a minute. That strip of concrete down the middle of the island. That's the skid strip for bringing in missiles that are recallable. Can't see the central control for telemetering and guidance and destruction of the things if they go mad. That'll be underground–one of those squat blockhouse things. Some brass hat'll be sitting down there with his staff getting all set for the countdown or whatever's going to happen and telling someone to do something about that goddamn little plane that's fouling up the works.»

Above their heads the radio crackled. A metallic voice said, «N/AKOI, N/AKOI. You're in a prohibited area. Can you hear me. Change course southwards immediately. N/AKOI. This is Grand Bahama Rocket Base. Keep clear. Keep clear.»

Leiter said, «Oh, hell! No use interfering with world progress. Anyway, we've seen all we want. No good getting on the Windsor Field report to add to our troubles.» He banked the little plane sharply. «But you see what I mean? If that little heap of iron-mongery isn't worth a quarter of a billion dollars my name's P. Rick. And it's just about a hundred miles from Nassau. Perfect for the Disco .»

The radio started again: «N/AKOI, N/AKOI. You will be reported for entering a prohibited area and for failing to acknowledge. Keep flying south and watch out for sudden turbulence. Over.» The radio went silent.

Leiter said, «That means they're going to fire a test. Keep an eye on them and let me know when. I'll cut down the revs. No harm in watching ten million dollars of the taxpayer's money being blown off, Look! The radar scanner's turned back to the east. They'll be sweating it out in that blockhouse all right. I've seen 'em at it. Lights'11 be blinking all over the big board way down underground. The Kibitzers'11 be at their periscopes. Voices'll come down over the P.A. system–'Beacon contact . . . Warning balloons up ... Telemeter contact . . . Tank pressure okay . . . Gyros okay . . . Rocket-tank pressure correct . . . Rocket clear . . . Recorders alive . . . Lights all green . . . Ten, nine, eight, seven, six ... Fire!»'

Despite Leiter's graphic countdown, nothing happened. Then, through his glasses, Bond saw a wisp of steam coming from the base of the rocket. Then a great cloud of steam and smoke and a flash of bright light that turned red. Breathlessly, for there was something terrible in the sight, Bond gave the blow-by-blow to Leiter. «It's edging up off the pad. There's a jet of flame. It seems to be sitting on it. Now it's going up like a lift. Now it's off! God, it's going fast! Now there's nothing but a spark of fire in the sky. Now it's gone. Whew!» Bond mopped his brow. «Remember that Moonraker job I was on a few years back? Interesting to see what the people out front saw.»

«Yeah. You were lucky to get out of that deep fry.» Leiter brushed aside Bond's reminiscences. «Now then, next stop those spits in the ocean north of Bimini and then a good run down the Bimini Group. Around seventy miles southwest. Keep an eye out. If we miss those dots, we'll end up in the grounds of the Fountain Blue in Miami.»

A quarter of an hour later, the tiny necklet of cays showed up. They were barely above the water line. There was much shoal. It looked an ideal hiding-place for the plane. They came down to a hundred feet and slowly cruised in a zigzag down the group. The water was so clear that Bond could see big fish meandering around the dark clumps of coral and seaweed in the brilliant sand. A big diamond-shaped sting ray cowered and buried itself in the sand as the black shadow of the plane pursued and shot over it. There was nothing else and no possibility of concealment. The green shoal waters were as clean and innocent as if they had been open desert. The plane flew on south to North Bimini. Here there were a few houses and some small fishing hotels. Expensive-looking deep-sea fishing craft were out, their tall rods streaming. Gay people in the well-decks waved to the little plane. A girl, sunbathing naked on the roof of a smart cabin cruiser, hastily snatched at a towel. «Authentic blonde!» commented Leiter. They flew on south to the Cat Cays that trail away south from the Biminis. Here there was still, an occasional fishing craft. Leiter groaned. «What the hell's the good of this? These fishermen would have found it by now if it was here.» Bond told him to keep on south. Thirty miles farther south there were little unnamed specks on the Admiralty chart. Soon the dark blue water began to shoal again to green. They passed over three sharks circling aimlessly. Then there was nothing–just dazzling sand under the glassy surface, and occasional patches of coral.

They went on carefully down to where the water turned again to blue. Leiter said dully, «Well, that's that. Fifty miles on there's Andros. Too many people there. Someone would have heard the plane–if there was a plane.» He looked at his watch. «Eleven-thirty. What next, Hawkshaw? I've only got fuel for another two hours' flying.»

Something was itching deep down in Bond's mind. Something, some small detail, had raised a tiny question mark. What was it? Those sharks! In about forty feet of water! Circling on the surface! What were they doing there? Three of them. There must be something–something dead that had brought them to that particular patch of sand and coral. Bond said urgently, «Just go back up once more, Felix. Over the shoals. There's something–»

The little plane made a tight turn. Felix cut down the revs and just kept flying speed about fifty feet above the surface. Bond opened the door and craned out, his glasses at short focus. Yes, there were the sharks, two on the surface with their dorsals out, and one deep down. It was nosing at something. It had its teeth into something and was pulling at it. Among the dark and pale patches, a thin straight line showed on the bottom. Bond shouted, «Get back over again!» The plane zoomed round and back. Christ! Why did they have to go so fast? But now Bond had seen another straight line on the bottom, leading off at ninety degrees from the first. He flopped back into his seat and banged the door shut. He said quietly, «Put her down over those sharks, Felix. I think this is it.»

Leiter took a quick glance at Bond's face. He said, «Christ!» Then, «Well, I hope I can make it. Damned difficult to get a true horizon. This water's like glass.» He pulled away, curved back, and slowly put the nose down. There was a slight jerk and then the hiss of the water under the skids. Leiter cut his engines and the plane came to a quick stop, rocking in the water about ten yards from where Bond wanted. The two sharks on the surface paid no attention. They completed their circle and came slowly back. They passed so close to the plane that Bond could see the incurious, pink button eyes. He peered down through the small ripples cast by the two dorsal fins. Yes! Those «rocks» on the bottom were bogus. They were painted patches. So were the areas of «sand.» Now Bond could clearly see the straight edges of the giant tarpaulin. The third shark had nosed back a big section. Now it was shoveling with its flat head trying to get underneath.

Bond sat back. He turned to Leiter. He nodded. «That's it, all right. Big camouflaged tarpaulin over her. Take a look.»

While Leiter leaned across Bond and stared down, Bond's mind was racing furiously. Get the Police Commissioner on the police wavelength and report? Get signals sent off to London? No! If the radio operation on the Disco was doing his job, he would be keeping watch on the police frequency. So go on down and have a look. See if the bombs were still there. Bring up a piece of evidence. The sharks? Kill one and the others would go for the corpse.

Leiter sat back. His face was shining with excitement. «Well, I'll be goddammed! Boy oh boy!» He clapped Bond on the back. «We've found it! We've found the goddam plane. Whaddya know? Jesus Kerist!»

Bond had taken out the Walther PPK. He checked to see there was a round in the chamber, rested it on his left forearm, and waited for the two sharks to come round again. The first was the bigger, a hammerhead, nearly twelve feet long. Its hideously distorted head moved slowly from side to side as it nuzzled through the water, watching what went on below, waiting for a sign of meat. Bond aimed for the base of the dorsal fin that cut through the water like a dark sail. It was fully erect, a sign of tension and awareness in the big fish. Just below it was the spine, unassailable except with a nickel-plated bullet. He pulled the trigger. There was a phut as the bullet hit the surface just behind the dorsal. The boom of the heavy gun rolled away over the sea. The shark paid no attention. Bond fired again. The water foamed as the fish reared itself above the surface, dived shallowly, and came up thrashing sideways like a broken snake. It was a brief flurry. The bullet must have severed the spinal cord. Now the great brown shape began moving sluggishly in circles that grew ever wider. The hideous snout came briefly out of the water to show the sickle mouth gasping. For a moment it rolled over on its back, its stomach white to the sun. Then it righted itself and, dead probably, continued its mechanical, disjointed swim.

The following shark had watched all this. Now it approached cautiously. It made a short snapping run and swerved away. Feeling safe, it darted in again, seemed to nuzzle at the dying fish, and then lifted its snout above the surface and came down with all its force, scything into the flank of the hammerhead. It got hold, but the flesh was tough. It shook its great brown head like a dog, worrying at the mouthful, and then tore itself away. A cloud of blood poured over the sea. Now the other shark appeared from below and both fish, in a frenzy, tore and tore again at the still moving hulk whose nervous system refused to die.

The dreadful feast moved away on the current and was soon only a distant splashing on the surface of the quiet sea.

Bond handed Leiter the gun. «I'll get on down. May be rather a long job. They've got enough to keep them busy for half an hour, but if they come back, wing one of them. And if for any reason you Want me back on the surface, fire straight down at the water and go on firing. The shock wave should just about reach me.»

Bond began to struggle out of his clothes and, with Leiter's help, into his aqualung. It was a cramped, difficult business. It would be still worse getting back into the plane and it occurred to Bond that he would have to jettison the underwater gear. Leiter said angrily, «I wish to God I could get down there with you. Trouble with this damned hook, it just won't swim like a hand. Have to think up some rubber webbing gadget. Never occurred to me before.»

Bond said, «You'll have to keep steam up on this crate. We've already drifted a hundred yards. Get her back up, like a good chap. I don't know who I'm going to find sharing the wreck with me. It's been here a good five days and other visitors may have moved in first.»

Leiter pressed the starter and taxied back into position. He said, «You know the design of the Vindicator? You know where to look for the bombs and these detonator things the pilot has charge of?» «Yes. Full briefing in London. Well, so long. Tell Mother I died game!» Bond scrambled onto the edge of the cockpit and jumped. He got his head under and swam leisurely down through the brilliant water. Now he could see that there were swarms of fish over the whole area below him–bill fish, small barracuda, jacks of various types–the carnivores. They parted grudgingly to make room for their big, pale competitor. Bond touched down and made for the edge of the tarpaulin that had been dislodged by the shark. He pulled out a couple of the long corkscrew skewers that secured it to the sand, switched on his waterproof torch and, his other hand on his knife, slipped under the edge.

He had been expecting it, but the foulness of the water made him retch. He clamped his lips more tightly round the mouthpiece and squirmed on to where the bulk of the plane raised the tarpaulin into a domed tent. He stood up. His torch glittered on the underside of a polished wing and then, below it, on something that lay under a scrabbling mass of crabs, langoustes, sea caterpillars and starfish. This also Bond had been prepared for. He knelt down to his grisly work. It didn't take long. He undipped the gold identification disk and unlatched the gold wrist watch from the horrible wrists and noted the gaping wound under the chin that could not have been caused by sea creatures. He turned his torch on the gold disk. It said, «Giuseppe Petacchi. No. 15932.» He strapped the two bits of evidence to his own wrists and went on toward the fuselage that loomed in the darkness like a huge silver submarine. He inspected the exterior, noted the rent where the hull had been broken on impact, and then climbed up through the open safety hatch into the interior.

Inside, Bond's torch shone everywhere into red eyes that glowed like rubies in the darkness, and there was a soft movement and scuttling. He sprayed the light up and down the fuselage. Every where there were octopuses, small ones, but perhaps a hundred of them, weaving on the tips of their tentacles, sliding softly away into protecting shadows, changing their camouflage nervously from brown to a pale phosphorescence that gleamed palely in the patches of darkness. The whole fuselage seemed to be crawling with them, evilly, horribly, and as Bond shone his torch on the roof the sight was even worse. There, bumping softly in the slight current, hung the corpse of a crew member. In decomposition, it had risen up from the floor, and octopuses, hanging from it like bats, now let go their hold and shot, jet-propelled, to and fro inside the plane-dreadful, glinting, red-eyed comets that slapped themselves into dark corners and stealthily squeezed themselves into cracks and under seats.

Bond closed his mind to the disgusting nightmare and, weaving his torch in front of him, proceeded with his search.

He found the red-striped cyanide canister and tucked it into his belt. He counted the corpses, noted the open hatch to the bomb bay, and verified that the bombs had gone. He looked in the open container under the pilot's seat and searched in alternative places for the vital fuses for the bombs. But they also had gone. Finally, having a dozen times had to slash away groping tentacles from his naked legs, he felt his nerve was quickly seeping away. There was much he should have taken with him, the identification disks of the crew, the pulp of the log book that showed nothing but routine flight details and no hint of emergency readings from the instrument panel, but he couldn't stand another second of the squirming, red-eyed catacomb. He slid out through the escape hatch and swam almost hysterically toward the thin line of light that was the edge of the tarpaulin. Desperately, he scrabbled his way under it, snagged the cylinder on his back in the folds, and had to back under again to free himself. And then he was out in the beautiful crystal water and soaring up to the surface. At twenty feet the pain in his ears reminded him to stop and decompress. Impatiently, staring up at the sweet hull of the seaplane above him, he waited until the pain had subsided. Then he was up and clinging to a float and tearing at his equipment to get rid of it and its contamination. He let it all go and watched it tumbling slowly down toward the sand. He rinsed his mouth out with the sweetness of pure salt water and swam to within reach of Letter's outstretched hand.

18. How to Eat a Girl

As they approached Nassau on their way back, Bond asked Leiter to take a look at the Disco lying off Palmyra. She was there all right, just where she had been the day before. The only difference, which had little meaning, was that she had only her bow anchor out. There was no movement on board. Bond was thinking that she looked beautiful and quite harmless lying there reflecting her elegant lines in the mirror of the sea, when Leiter said excitedly, «Say, James, take a look at the beach place. The boathouse alongside the creek. See those double tracks leading up out of the water? Up to the door of the boathouse. They look odd to me. They're deep. What could have made them?»

Bond focused his glasses. The tracks ran parallel. Something, something heavy, had been hauled between the boathouse and the sea. But it couldn't be, surely it couldn't! He said tensely, «Let's get away quick, Felix.» Then as they zoomed off overland: «I'm damned if I can think of anything that could have made those. And dammit, if it was what it might have been, they'd have swept off those tracks pretty quick.»

Leiter said laconically, «People make mistakes. We'll have to give that place the going-over. Ought to have done it before. Nice-looking dump. I think I'll take Mr. Largo up on his invitation and get out there on behalf of my esteemed client, Mr. Rockefeller Bond.»

It was one o'clock by the time they got back to Windsor Field. For half an hour the control tower had been searching for them on the radio. Now they had to face the commandant of the field and, providentially as it happened, the Governor's A.D.C., who gave the Governor's blanket authorization for the string of their misdemeanors and then handed Bond a thick envelope which contained signals for both of them.

The contents began with the expected rockets for breaking communication and demands for further news («That they'll get!» commented Leiter as they raced toward Nassau in the comfortable back of the Governor's Humber Snipe saloon.) E.T.A. for the Manta was five o'clock that evening. Inquiries through Interpol and the

Italian police confirmed that Giuseppe Petacchi was in fact the brother of Dominetta Vitali, whose personal history as given to Bond stood up in all other respects. The same sources confirmed that Emilio Largo was a big-time adventurer and suspected crook though technically his dossier was clean. The source of his wealth was unknown but did not stem from funds held in Italy. The Disco had been paid for in Swiss francs. The constructors confirmed the existence of the underwater compartment. It contained an electric hoist and provision for launching small underwater craft and releasing skin divers. In Largo's specifications, this modification to the hull had been given as a requirement for underwater research. Further inquiry into the «shareholders» had yielded no further facts–with the significant exception that most of their backgrounds and professions dated back no further than six years. This suggested the possibility that their identities might be of recent fabrication and, at any rate in theory, this would equate with possible membership of SPECTRE, if such a body did in fact exist. Kotze had left Switzerland for an unknown destination four weeks previously. Latest photographs of the man were on the midday Pan American plane. Nevertheless the Thunderball war room had to accept the solidity of Largo's cover unless further evidence came to hand, and the present intention was to continue the world-wide search while allotting priority to the Bahamas area. In view of this priority, and the extremely urgent time factor, Brigadier Fairchild, C.B., D.S.O., British Military Attache in Washington, with Rear Admiral Carlson, U.S.N. Ret., until recently Secretary to the U.S. Chiefs of Staff Committee, would be arriving at 1900 E.S.T. by the President's Boeing 707 «Columbine» to take joint command of further operations. The full cooperation of Messrs. Bond and Leiter was requested and, until the arrival of above-named officers, full reports every hour on the hour were to be radioed to London, copy to Washington, under joint signature.

Leiter and Bond looked at each other in silence. Finally Leiter said, «James, I propose we disregard the last bit and take formal note of remainder. We've already missed four hours and I don't propose we spend the rest of the day sweating it out in our radio room. There's just too much to do. Tell you what. I'll do the stint of telling them the latest and then I'll say we're going off the air in view of the new emergency. I then propose to go and look over Palmyra on your behalf, sticking to our cover story. And I propose to have a damned good look at the boathouse and see what those tracks mean. Right? Then, at five, we'll rendezvous with the Manta and prepare to intercept the Disco if and when she sails. As for the Big Brass in the President's Special, well they can just play pinochle in Government House until tomorrow morning. Tonight's the night and we just can't waste it on the `After you Alphonse' routine. Okay?» Bond reflected. They were coming into the outskirts of Nassau, through the shanty-town slums tucked away behind the millionaire façade along the waterfront. He had disobeyed many orders in his life, but this was to disobey the Prime Minister of England and the President of the United States–a mighty left and right. But things were moving a damned sight too fast. M had given him this territory and, right or wrong, M would back him up, as he always backed up his staff, even if it meant M's own head on a charger. Bond said, «I agree, Felix. With the Manta we can manage this on our own. The vital thing is to find out when those bombs go on board the Disco. I've got an idea for that. May work, may not. It means giving the Vitali girl a rough time, but I'll try and handle that side. Drop me at the hotel and I'll get cracking. Meet you here again around four-thirty. I'll call up Harling and see if he's got anything new on the Disco and ask him to pass the word upstairs to you if anything's cooking. You've got all that straight about the plane? Okay. I'll hang on to Petacchi's identification disk for the time being. Be seeing you.»

Bond almost ran through the lobby of the hotel. When he picked up his key at the reception desk they gave him a telephone message. He read it going up in the lift. It was from Domino: «Please telephone quickly.»

In his room, Bond first ordered a club sandwich and a double bourbon on the rocks and then called the Police Commissioner. The Disco had moved to the oiling wharf at first light and had filled her tanks. Then she had moved back to her anchorage off Palmyra. Half an hour ago, at one-thirty precisely, the seaplane had been lowered over the side and, with Largo and one other on board, had taken off eastward. When the Commissioner had heard this on the walkie-talkie from his watchers he had got on to the control tower at Windsor Field and had asked for the plane to be radar-tracked. But she had flown low, at about three hundred feet, and they had lost her among the islands about fifty miles to the southeast. Nothing else had come up except that the harbor authorities had been alerted to expect an American submarine, the Manta , the nuclear-powered one, at around five in the evening. That was all. What did Bond know? Bond said carefully that it was too early to tell. It looked as if the operation was hotting up. Could the watchers be asked to rush the news back as soon as the seaplane was sighted coming back to the Disco ? This was vital. Would the Commissioner please pass on his news to Felix Leiter, who was on his way to the radio room at that moment? And could Bond be lent a car–anything–to drive himself? Yes, a Land Rover would be fine. Anything with four wheels.

Then Bond got on to Domino out at Palmyra. She sounded eager for his voice. «Where have you been all morning, James?» It was the first time she had used his Christian name. «I want you to come swimming this afternoon. I have been told to pack and come on board this evening. Emilio says they are going after the treasure tonight. Isn't it nice of him to take me? But it's a dead secret, so don't tell anyone, will you. But he is vague about when we will be back. He said something about Miami. I thought»–she hesitated– «I thought you might have gone back to New York by the time we get back. I have seen so little of you. You left so suddenly last night. What was it?»

«I suddenly got a headache. Touch of the sun, I suppose. It had been quite a day. I didn't want to go. And I'd love to come for a swim. Where?»

She gave him careful directions. It was a beach a mile farther along the coast from Palmyra. There was a side road and a thatched hut. He couldn't miss it. The beach was sort of better than Palmyra's. The skin-diving was more fun. And of course there weren't so many people. It belonged to some Swedish millionaire who had gone away. When could he get there? Half an hour would be all right. They would have more time. On the reef, that is.

Bond's drink came and the sandwich. He sat and consumed them, looking at the wall, feeling excited about the girl, but knowing what he was going to do to her life that afternoon. It was going to be a bad business–when it could have been so good. He remembered her as he had first seen her, the ridiculous straw hat tilted down over the nose, the pale blue ribbons flying as she sped up Bay Street. Oh, well ...

Bond rolled his swimming trunks into a towel, put on a dark blue sea-island cotton shirt over his slacks, and slung Leiter's Geiger counter over his shoulder. He glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked like any other tourist with a camera. He felt in his trousers pocket to make sure he had the identification bracelet and went out of the room and down in the lift.

The Land Rover had Dunlopillo cushions, but the ripple-edged tarmac and the pitted bends of Nassau's coastal road were tough on the springs and the quivering afternoon sun was a killer. By the time Bond found the sandy track leading off into the casuarinas and had parked the car on the edge of the beach, all he wanted to do was get into the sea and stay in it. The beach hut was a Robinson Crusoe affair of plaited bamboo and screwpine with a palm thatch whose wide eaves threw black shadows. Inside were two changing rooms labeled HIS and HERS. HERS contained a small pile of soft clothes and the white doeskin sandals. Bond changed and walked out again into the sun. The small beach was a dazzling half-moon of white sand enclosed on both sides by rocky points. There was no sign of the girl. The beach shelved quickly through green to blue under the water. Bond took a few steps through the shallows and dived through the blood-warm upper water down into the cool depths. He kept down there as long as possible, feeling the wonderful cold caress on his skin and through his hair. Then he surfaced and crawled lazily out to sea, expecting to see the girl skin-diving around one of the headlands. But there was no sign of her, and after ten minutes Bond turned back to the shore, chose a patch of firm sand, and lay down on his stomach, his face cradled in his arms.

Minutes later, something made Bond open his eyes. Coming toward him across the middle of the quiet bay was a thin trail of bubbles. When it passed over the dark blue into the green Bond could see the yellow single cylinder of the aqualung tank and the glint of a mask with a fan of dark hair streaming out behind. The girl beached herself in the shallows. She raised herself on one elbow and lifted the mask. She said severely, «Don't lie there dreaming. Come and rescue me.»

Bond got to his feet and walked the few steps to where she lay. He said, «You oughtn't to aqualung by yourself. What's happened? Has a shark been lunching off you?»

«Don't make silly jokes. I've got some sea-egg spines in my foot. You'll have to get them out somehow. First of all get this aqualung off me. It hurts too much to stand on my foot with all this weight.»

She reached for the buckle at her stomach and released the catch. «Now just lift it off.»

Bond did as he was told and carried the cylinder up into the shade of the trees. Now she was sitting in the shallow water, inspecting the sole of her right foot. She said, «There are only two of them. They're going to be difficult.»

Bond came and knelt beside her. The two black spots, close together, were almost under the curl of the middle toes. He got up and held out a hand. «Come on. We'll get into the shade. This is going to take time. Don't put your foot down or you'll push them in further. I'll carry you.»

She laughed up at him. «My hero! All right. But don't drop me.» She held up both arms. Bond reached down and put one arm under her knees and another under her armpits. Her arms closed round his neck. Bond picked her up easily. He stood for a moment in the lapping water and looked down into her upturned face. The bright eyes said yes. He bent his head and kissed her hard on the half-open, waiting mouth.

The soft lips held his and drew slowly away. She said rather breathlessly, «You shouldn't take your reward in advance.»

«That was only on account.» Bond closed his hand firmly over her right breast and walked out of the water and up the beach into the shade of the casuarinas. He laid her gently down in the soft sand. She put her hands behind her head to keep the sand out of her straggling hair and lay waiting, her eyes half hidden behind the dark mesh of her eyelashes.

The mounded V of the bikini looked up at Bond and the proud breasts in the tight cups were two more eyes. Bond felt his control going. He said roughly, «Turn over.»

She did as she was told. Bond knelt down and picked up her right foot. It felt small and soft, like a captured bird, in his hand. He wiped away the specks of sand and uncurled the toes. The small pink pads were like the buds of some multiple flower. Holding them back, he bent and put his lips to where the broken ends of the black spines showed. He sucked hard for about a minute. A small piece of grit from one of the spines came into his mouth and he spat it out. He said, This is going to be a long business unless I hurt a bit. Otherwise it'll take all day and I can't waste too much time over just one foot. Ready?»

He saw the muscles of her behind clench to take the pain. She said dreamily, «Yes.»

Bond sunk his teeth into the flesh round the spines, bit as softly as he could, and sucked hard. The foot struggled to get away. Bond paused to spit out some fragments. The marks of his teeth showed white and there were pinpoints of blood at the two tiny holes. He licked them away. There was almost no black left under the skin. He said, «This is the first time I've eaten a woman. They're rather good.»

She squirmed impatiently but said nothing.

Bond knew how much it would be hurting. He said, «It's all right, Domino. You're doing fine. Last mouthful.» He gave the sole of her foot a reassuring kiss and then, as tenderly as he could, put his teeth and lips back to work.

A minute or two later and he spat out the last section of spine. He told her it was over and gently laid the foot down. He said, «Now you mustn't get sand into it. Come on, I'll give you another lift into the hut and you can put your sandals on.»

She rolled over. Her black eyelashes were wet with the tears of small pain. She wiped a hand over them. She said, looking seriously up at him, «Do you know, you're the first man who's ever made me cry.» She held up her arms and now there was complete surrender.

Bond bent and picked her up. This time he didn't kiss the waiting mouth. He carried her to the door of the hut. His or HERS? He carried her into HIS. He reached out a hand for his shirt and shorts and threw them down to make a scrap of a bed. He put her down softly so that she was standing on his shirt. She kept her arms round his neck while he undid the single button of the brassière and then the tapes of the taut slip. He stepped out of his bathing trunks and kicked them away.

19. When the Kissing Stopped

Bond leaned on one elbow and looked down at the beautiful drowned face. There was a dew of sweat below the eyes and at the temples. A pulse beat fast at the base of the neck. The lines of authority had been sponged away by the love-making and the face had a soft, sweet, bruised look. The wet eyelashes parted and the tawny eyes, big and faraway, looked up with remote curiosity into Bond's. They focused lazily and examined him as if they were seeing him for the first time.

Bond said, «I'm sorry. I shouldn't have done that.»

The words amused her. The dimples at each side of the mouth deepened into clefts. She said, «You talk like a girl who has had it for the first time. Now you are frightened that you will have a baby. You will have to tell your mother.»

Bond leaned down and kissed her. He kissed the two corners of her mouth and then the parted lips. He said, «Come and swim. Then I must talk to you.» He got to his feet and held out his hands. Reluctantly she took them. He pulled her up and against him. Her body flirted with his, knowing it was safe. She smiled impishly up at him and became more wanton. Bond crushed her fiercely to him, to stop her and because he knew they had only a few more minutes of happiness. He said, «Stop it, Domino. And come on. We don't need any clothes. The sand won't hurt your foot. I was only pretending.»

She said, «So was I when I came out of the sea. The spines didn't hurt all that much. And I could have cured them if I'd wanted to. Like the fishermen do. You know how?»

Bond laughed. «Yes I do. Now, into the sea.» He kissed her once and stood back and looked at her body to remember how it had been. Then he turned abruptly and ran to the sea and dived deeply down.

When he got back to shore she was already out and dressing. Bond dried himself. He answered her laughing remarks through the partition with monosyllables. Finally she accepted the change in him. She said, «What is the matter with you, James? Is anything wrong?»

«Yes, darling.» Pulling on his trousers, Bond heard the rattle of the little gold chain against the coins in his pocket. He said, «Come outside. I've got to talk to you.»

Sentimentally, Bond chose a patch of sand on the other side of the nut from where they had been before. She came out and stood in front of him. She examined his face carefully, trying to read it. Bond avoided her eyes. He sat with his arms around his knees and looked out to sea. She sat down beside him, but not close. She said, «You are going to hurt me. Is it that you too are going away? Be quick. Do it cleanly and I will not cry.»

Bond said, «I'm afraid it's worse than that, Domino. It's not about me. It's about your brother.»

Bond sensed the stiffening of her body. She said in a low, tense voice, «Go on. Tell me.»

Bond took the bracelet out of his pocket and silently handed it to her.

She took it. She hardly gave it a glance. She turned a little away from Bond. «So he is dead. What happened to him?»

«It is a bad story, and a very big one. It involves your friend Largo. It is a very great conspiracy. I am here to find out things for my government. I am really a kind of policeman. I am telling you this and I will tell you the rest because hundreds and perhaps thousands of people will die unless you help to prevent it. That is why I had to show you that bracelet and hurt you so that you would believe me. I am breaking my oath in doing this. Whatever happens, whatever you decide to do, I trust you not to tell what I am going to say.»

«So that is why you made love to me–to make me do what you want. And now you blackmail me with the death of my brother.» The words came out between her teeth. Now in a soft, deadly whisper, she said, «I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.»

Bond said coldly, in a matter-of-fact voice, «Your brother was killed by Largo, or on his orders. I came here to tell you that. But then»–he hesitated–»you were there and I love you and want you. When what happened began to happen I should have had strength to stop it. I hadn't. I knew it was then or perhaps never. Knowing what I knew, it was a dreadful thing to have done. But you looked so beautiful and happy. I wanted to put off hurting you. That is my only excuse.» Bond paused. «Now listen to what I have to tell you. Try and forget about your hate for me. In a moment you will realize that we are nothing in all this. This is a thing by itself.» Bond didn't wait for her to comment. He began from the beginning and went slowly, minutely, through the whole case, omitting only the advent of the Manta , the one factor that could now be of help to Largo and perhaps alter his plans. He ended, «So you see, there is nothing we can do until those weapons are actually on board the Disco . Until that moment comes, Largo has a perfect alibi with his treasure-hunt story. There is nothing to link him with the crashed plane or with SPECTRE. If we interfere with him now, this moment, arrest the ship on some excuse, put a watch on her, prevent her sailing, there will only be a delay in the SPECTRE plan. Only Largo and his men know where the bombs are hidden. If the plane has gone for them, it will be keeping contact with the Disco by radio. If there's any hitch, the plane can leave the bombs at the hiding place or at another, dump them in shallow water anywhere, and return for them when the trouble has blown over. Even the Disco could be taken off the job and some other ship or plane used any time in the future. SPECTRE headquarters, wherever they are, will inform the Prime Minister that there has been a change of plan, or they can say nothing at all. Then, perhaps weeks from now, they will send another communication. And this time there will perhaps be only twenty-four hours' notice for the money to be dropped. The terms will be tougher. And we shall have to accept them. So long as those bombs are still lost to us, the threat is there. You see that?» «Yes. So what is to be done?» The voice was harsh. The girl's eyes glittered fiercely as they looked at and through Bond toward some distant target–not, he thought, at Largo the great conspirator, but at Largo who had had her brother killed.

«We have got to know when those bombs are on board the Disco . That is all that matters. Then we can act with all our weight. And we have one great factor on our side. We are pretty sure that Largo feels secure. He still believes that the wonderful plan, and it is wonderful, is going exactly as it was meant to do. That is our strength and our only strength. You see that?»

«And how are you to know when the bombs come on board the yacht?»

«You must tell us.»

«Yes.» The monosyllable was dull, indifferent. «But how am I to know? And how am I to tell you? This man is no fool. He is only foolish in wanting his mistress»–she spat the word out–»when so much else is at stake.» She paused. «These people have chosen badly. Largo cannot live without a woman within reach. They should have known that.»

«When did Largo tell you to come back on board?»

«Five. The boat is coming to fetch me at Palmyra.»

Bond looked at his watch. «It is now four. I have this Geiger counter. It is simple to use. It will tell at once if the bombs are on board. I want you to take it with you. If it says there is a bomb on board, I want you to show a light at your porthole–switch the lights on in your cabin several times, anything like that. We have men watching the ship. They will be told to report. Then get rid of the Geiger counter. Drop it overboard.»

She said scornfully, «That is a silly plan. It is the sort of melodramatic nonsense people write about in thrillers. In real life people don't go into their cabins and switch on their lights in daylight. No. If the bombs are there, I will come up on deck–show myself to your men. That is natural behavior. If they are not there, I will stay in my cabin.»

«All right. Have it your own way. But will you do this?» «Of course. If I can prevent myself killing Largo when I see him. But on condition that when you get him you will see that he is killed.» She was entirely serious. She looked at him with matter-of-fact eyes as if he were a travel agent and she were reserving a seat on a train.

«I doubt if that will happen. I should say that every man on board will get a life sentence in prison.»

She considered this. «Yes. That will do. That is worse than being killed. Now show me how this machine works.» She got to her feet and took a couple of steps up the beach. She seemed to remember something. She looked down at the bracelet in her hand. She turned and walked down to the edge of the sea and stood for a moment looking out across the quiet water. She said some words that Bond couldn't hear. Then she leaned back and with all her strength threw the gold chain far out over the shoal into the dark blue. The chain twinkled briefly in the strong sun and there was a small splash. She watched the ripples widen and, when the smashed mirror was whole again, turned and walked back up the sand, her small limp leaving footmarks of uneven depth.

Bond showed her the working of the machine. He eliminated the wrist-watch indicator and told her to depend entirely on the telltale clicking. «Anywhere in the ship should be all right,» he explained. «But better near the hold if you can get there. Say you want to take a photograph from the well deck aft or something. This thing's made up to look like a Rolleiflex. It's got all the Rolleiflex lenses and gadgets on the front, lever to press and all. It just hasn't got a film. You could say that you'd decided to take some farewell pictures of Nassau and the yacht, couldn't you?»

«Yes.» The girl, who had been listening attentively, now seemed distracted. Tentatively she put out a hand and touched Bond's arm. She let the hand fall. She looked up at him and then swiftly away. She said shyly, «What I said, what I said about hating you. That is not true. I didn't understand. How could I–all this terrible story? I still can't quite believe it, believe that Largo has anything to do with it. We had a sort of an affair in Capri. He is an attractive man. Everyone else wanted him. It was a challenge to take him from all these other smart women. Then he explained about the yacht and this wonderful trip looking for treasure. It was like a fairy tale. Of course I agreed to come. Who wouldn't have? In exchange, I was quite ready to do what I had to do.» She looked briefly at him and away. «I am sorry. But that is how it is. When we got to Nassau and he kept me ashore, away from the yacht, I was surprised but I was not offended. The islands are beautiful. There was enough for me to do. But what you have told me explains many small things. I was never allowed in the radio room. The crew were silent and unfriendly–they treated me like someone who was not wanted on board, and they were on curious terms with Largo, more like equals than paid men. And they were tough men and better educated than sailors usually are. So it all fits. I can even remember that, for a whole week before last Thursday, Largo was terribly nervous and irritable. We were already getting tired of each other. I put it down to that. I was even making plans for flying home by myself. But he has been better the last few days and when he told me to be packed and ready to come on board this evening, I thought I might just as well do as he said. And of course I was very excited over this treasure hunt. I wanted to see what it was all about. But then»–she looked out to sea–»there was you. And this afternoon, after what happened, I had decided to tell Largo I would not go. I would stay here and see where you went and go with you.» For the first time she looked him full in the face and held his eyes. «Would you have let me do that?»

Bond reached out and put his hand against her cheek. «Of course I would.»

«But what happens now? When shall I see you again?»

This was the question Bond had dreaded. By sending her back on board, and with the Geiger counter, he was putting her in double danger. She could be found out by Largo, in which case her death would be immediate. If it came to a chase, which seemed almost certain, the Manta would sink the Disco by gunfire or torpedo, probably without warning. Bond had added up these factors and had closed his mind to them. He kept it closed. He said, «As soon as this is over. I shall look for you wherever you are. But now you are going to be in danger. You know this. Do you want to go on with it?» She looked at her watch. She said, «It is half past four. I must go. Do not come with me to the car. Kiss me once and stay here. Do not worry about what you want done. I will do it well. It is either that or a stiletto in the hack for this man.» She held out her arms. «Come.» Minutes later Bond heard the engine of the MG come to life. He waited until the sound had receded in the distance down the Western Coast Road; then he went to the Land Rover and climbed in and followed.

A mile down the coast, at the two white obelisks that marked the entrance to Palmyra, dust still hung in the driveway. Bond sneered at his impulse to drive in after her and stop her from going out to the yacht. What in hell was he thinking of? He drove on fast down the road to Old Fort Point, where the police watchers were housed in the garage of a deserted villa. They were there, one man reading a paperback in a canvas chair while the other sat before tripod binoculars that were trained on the Disco through a gap in the blinds of a side window. The khaki walkie-talkie set was beside them on the floor. Bond gave them the new briefing and got on the radio to the Police Commissioner and confirmed it to him. The Commissioner passed two messages to him from Leiter. One was to the effect that the visit to Palmyra had been negative except that a servant had said the girl's baggage had gone on board the Disco that afternoon. The boathouse was completely innocent. It contained a glass-bottomed boat and pedallo. The pedallo would have made the tracks they had seen from the air. The second message said that the Manta was expected in twenty minutes. Would Bond meet Leiter at the Prince George, Wharf, where she would dock.

***

The Manta , coming with infinite caution up-channel, had none of the greyhound elegance of the conventional submarine. She was blunt and thick and ugly. The bulbous metal cucumber, her rounded nose shrouded with tarpaulin to hide the secrets of her radar scanner from the Nassavians, held no suggestion of her speed, which Leiter said was around forty knots submerged. «But they won't tell you that, James. That's Classified. I guess we're going to find that even the paper in the can is Classified when we go aboard. Watch out for these Navy guys, Nowadays they're so tight-lipped they think even a belch is a security risk.»

«What else do you know about her?»

«Well, we won't tell this to the captain, but of course in C.I.A. we had to be taught the basic things about these atom subs, so we could brief agents on what to look for and recognize clues in their reports. She's one of the George Washington Class, about four thousand tons, crew of around a hundred, cost about a hundred million dollars. Range, anything you want until the chow runs out or until the nuclear reactor needs topping up–say every hundred thousand miles or so. If she has the same armament as the George Washington, she'll have sixteen vertical launching tubes, two banks of eight, for the Polaris solid-fuel missile. These have a range of around twelve hundred miles. The crews call the tubes the `Sherwood Forest' because they're painted green and the missile compartment looks like rows of great big tree trunks. These Polaris jobs are fired from way down below the surface. The sub stops and holds dead steady. They have the ship's exact position at all times through radio fixes and star sights through a tricky affair called a star-tracker periscope. All this dope is fed into the missiles automatically. Then the chief gunner presses a button and a missile shoots up through the water by compressed air. When it breaks surface the solid-fuel rockets ignite and take the missile the rest of the way. Hell of a weapon, really, when you come to think of it. Imagine these damned things shooting up out of the sea anywhere in the world and blowing some capital city to smithereens. We've got six of them already and we're going to have more. Good deterrent when you come to think of it. You don't know where they are or when. Not like bomber bases and firing pads and so on you can track down and put out of action with your first rocket wave.»

Bond commented drily, «They'll find some way of spotting them. And presumably an atomic depth charge set deep would send a shock wave through hundreds of miles of water and blow anything to pieces over a huge area. But has she got anything smaller than these missiles? If we're going to do a job on the Disco what are we going to use?»

«She's got six torpedo tubes up front and I dare say she's got some smaller stuff–machine guns and so forth. The trouble's going to be to get the commander to fire them. He's not going to like firing on an unarmed civilian yacht on the orders of a couple of plainclothes guys, and one of them a Limey at that. Hope his orders from the Navy Department are as solid as mine and yours.» The huge submarine bumped gently against the wharf. Lines were thrown and an aluminum gangplank was run ashore. There was a ragged cheer from the crowd of watchers being held back by a cordon of police. Leiter said, «Well, here we go. And to one hell of a tad start. Not a hat between us to salute the quarter deck with. You curtsy, I'll bow.»

20. Time for Decision

The interior of the submarine was incredibly roomy, and it was stairs and not a ladder that led down into the interior. There was no clutter, and the sparkling paintwork was in two-tone green. Powerlines painted in vivid colors provided a cheerful contrast to the almost hospital decor. Preceded by the officer of the watch, a young man of about twenty-eight, they went down two decks. The air (70º with 46% humidity, explained the officer) was beautifully cool. At the bottom of the stairs he turned left and knocked on a door that said « Commander P. Pedersen, U.S.N. «

The captain looked about forty. He had a square, rather Scandinavian face with a black crew-cut just going gray. He had shrewd, humorous eyes but a dangerous mouth and jaw. He was sitting behind a neatly stacked metal desk smoking a pipe. There was an empty coffee cup in front of him and a signal pad on which he had just been writing. He got up and shook hands, waved them to two chairs in front of his desk, and said to the officer of the watch, «Coffee, please, Stanton. And have this sent, would you?» He tore the top sheet off the signal pad and handed it across. «Most Immediate.»

He sat down. «Well, gentlemen. Welcome aboard. Commander Bond, it's a pleasure to have a member of the Royal Navy visit the ship. Ever been in subs before?»

«I have,» said Bond, «but only as a supercargo. I was in Intelligence–R.N.V.R. Special Branch. Strictly a chocolate sailor.» The captain laughed. «That's good! And you, Mr. Leiter?» «No, Captain. But I used to have one of my own. You operated it with a sort of rubber bulb and tube. Trouble was they'd never let me have enough depth of water in the bath to see what she could really do.»

«Sounds rather like the Navy Department. They'll never let me try this ship full out. Except once on trials. Every time you want to get going, the needle comes across a damn red line some interfering so-and-so has painted on the dial. Well gentlemen»–the captain looked at Leiter–»what's the score? Haven't had such a flood of Top Secret Most Immediates since Korea. I don't mind telling you, the last one was from the Chief of the Navy, Personal. Said I was to consider myself under your orders, or, on your death or incapacity, under Commander Bond's, until Admiral Carlson arrives at 1900 this evening. So what? What's cooking? All I know is that all signals have been prefixed Operation Thunderball. What is this operation?»

Bond had greatly taken to Commander Pedersen. He liked his ease and humor and, in general–the old Navy phrase came back to him–the cut of his jib. Now he watched the stolid good-humored face as Leiter told his story down to the departure of Largo's amphibian at one-thirty and the instructions Bond had given to Domino Vitali.

In the background to Leiter's voice there was a medley of soft noises–the high, constant whine of a generator overlaid by the muted background of canned music–the Ink Spots singing, «I love coffee, I love tea.» Occasionally the P.A. system above the captain's desk crackled and sang with operational double-talk–»Roberts to Chief of the Boat»–»Chief Engineer wants Oppenshaw»– «Team Blue to Compartment F»–and from somewhere came the suck and gurgle of a pumplike apparatus that sounded punctually every two minutes. It was like being inside the simple brain of a robot that worked by hydraulics and electrical impulses with a few promptings from its human masters.

After ten minutes, Commander Pedersen sat back. He reached for his pipe and began filling it absent-mindedly. He said, «Well, that's one hell of a story.» He smiled. «And strangely enough, even if I hadn't had these signals from the Navy Department, I'd believe it. Always did think something like this would happen one of these days. Hell! I have to carry these missiles around, and I'm in command of a nuclear ship. But that doesn't mean that I'm not terrified by the whole business. Got a wife and two children, and that doesn't help either. These atomic weapons are just too damned dangerous. Why, any one of these little sandy cays around here could hold the whole of the United States to ransom–just with one of my missiles trained on Miami. And here am I, fellow called Peter Pedersen, age thirty-eight, maybe sane or maybe not, toting around sixteen of the things–enough to damn near wipe out England. However»–he put his hands down on the desk in front of him–»that's all by the way. Now we've got just one small piece of the problem on our hands–small, but as big as the world. So what are we to do? As I see it, the idea of you gentlemen is that this man Largo will be coming back any minute now in his plane after picking up the bombs from where he hid them. If he's got the bombs, and on what you've told me I'll go along with the probability that he has, this girl will give us the tip-off. Then we close in and arrest his ship or blow it out of the water. Right? But supposing he hasn't got the bombs on board, or for one reason or another we don't get the tip-off, what do we do then?»

Bond said quietly, «We follow him, sit close on his tail, until the time limit, that's about twenty-four hours from now, is up. That's all we can do without causing one hell of a legal stink. When the time limit's up, we can hand the whole problem back to our governments and they can decide what to do with the Disco and the sunken plane and all the rest. By that time, some little man in a speedboat we've never heard of may have left one of the bombs off the coast of America and Miami may have gone up in the air. Or there may be a big bang somewhere else in the world. There's been plenty of time to take those bombs off the plane and get them thousands of miles from here. Well, that'll be too bad and we'll have muffed it. But at this moment we're in the position of a detective watching a man he thinks is going to commit a murder. Doesn't even know for sure whether he's got a gun on him or not. There's nothing the detective can do but follow the man and wait until he actually pulls the gun out of his pocket and points it. Then, and only then, the detective can shoot the man or arrest him.» Bond turned to Leiter. «Isn't that about it, Felix?»

«That's how it figures. And Captain, Commander Bond here and I are damn sure Largo's our man and that he'll be sailing for his target in no time at all. That's why we agreed to panic and ask you along. One gets you a hundred he'll be placing that bomb at night and tonight's the last night he's got. By the way, Captain, have you got steam up, or whatever the atom boys call it?»

«I have, and we can be under way in just about five minutes.» The captain shook his head. «But there's one bit of bad news for you, gentlemen. I just can't figure how we're going to keep track of the Disco .»

«How's that? You've got the speed, haven't you?» Leiter caught himself pointing his steel hook threateningly at the captain, and hastily brought it down again to his lap.

The captain smiled. «Guess so. Guess we could give her a good race on a straight course, but you gentlemen don't seem to have figured on the navigational hazards in this part of the ocean.» He pointed at the British Admiralty chart on the wall. «Take a look at that. Ever seen a chart with so many figures on it? Looks like a spilled ants' nest. Those are soundings, gentlemen, and I can tell you that unless the Disco sticks to one of the deep-water channels–Tongue of the Ocean, Northwest Providence Channel, or the Northeast– we've had it, as Commander Bond would say. All the rest of that area»–he waved a hand–»may look the same blue color on a map, but after your trip in that Grumman Goose you know darned well it isn't the same blue color. Darned near the whole of that area is banks and shoal with only around three to ten fathoms over it. If I was quite crazy and looking for a nice cosy job ashore, I'd take the ship along surfaced in ten fathoms–if I could bribe the navigator and seal off the echo-sounder from crew members. But even if we got a long spell of ten fathoms on the chart, you got to remember that's an old chart, dates back to the days of sail, and these banks have been shifting for more than fifty years since it was drawn up. Then there's the tides that set directly onto and off the banks, and the coral niggerheads that won't show up on the echo-sounder until you hear the echo of them smashing up the hull or the screw.» The captain turned back to his desk. «No, gentlemen. This Italian vessel was darned well chosen. With that hydrofoil device of hers, she probably doesn't draw more than a fathom. If she chooses to keep to the shallows, we just haven't got a chance. And that's flat.» The captain looked from one to another of them. «Want me to call up the Navy Department and have Fort Lauderdale take over with those fighter bombers you've got on call–get them to do a shadowing job?»