And of course, Japan, with the highest suicide statistics in the world, a country with an unquenchable thirst for the bizarre, the cruel and the terrible, would provide the perfect last refuge for him.
On these things he spent all his money and it was his ambition to have as little as possible in his banking account when he was killed, as, when he was depressed, he knew he would be, before the statutory age of forty-five.
Benzedrine,’ he said. ‘I rang up my secretary before dinner and asked her to wangle some out of the surgery at Headquarters. It’s what I shall need if I’m going to keep my wits about me tonight. It’s apt to make one a bit overconfident, but that’ll be a help too.
IT WAS twelve o’clock when Bond left the Splendide and the clock on the ‘mairie’ was stumbling through its midday carillon.
Bond again walked round the room. This time he carefully inspected the walls and the neighbourhood of the bed and the telephone. Why not take the room? Why would there be microphones or secret doors? What would be the point of them?
He was used to oblique control and rather liked it. He felt it feather-bedded him a little, allowed him to give or take an hour or two in his communications with M.
The safe, empty room sneered at him.
Tears of forlornness and self-pity welled out of his eyes.
I hate small portions of anything, particularly when they taste bad.
Vesper smiled at him. ‘I like it,’ she said. ‘I like doing everything fully, getting the most out of everything one does. I think that’s the way to live. But it sounds rather schoolgirlish when one says it,’ she added apologetically.
He suddenly dropped his bantering tone and looked at Bond sharply and venomously.
She seemed to Bond to give a quick involuntary shrug of the shoulders as she spoke, but then she leant impulsively towards him. ‘I have some news for you from Mathis. He was longing to tell you himself. It’s about the bomb. It’s a fantastic story.
If one could be right every hand, none of us would be here,’ he said philosophically.
THERE ARE moments of great luxury in the life of a secret agent. There are assignments on which he is required to act the part of a very rich man; occasions when he takes refuge in good living to efface the memory of danger and the shadow of death; and times when, as was now the case, he is a guest in the territory of an allied Secret Service.
I expect because I think I can handle life better on my own. Most marriages don’t add two people together. They subtract one from the other.
His face showed neither pleasure nor excitement.
The thin man had hit him a hard professional cutting blow with the edge of the hand. There was something rather deadly about his accuracy and lack of effort. He was now again lying back, his eyes closed. He was a man to make you afraid, an evil man. Bond hoped he might get a chance of killing him.
Surround yourself with human beings, my dear James. They are easier to fight for than principles.’ He laughed. ‘But don’t let me down and become human yourself. We would lose such a wonderful machine.’ With a wave of the hand he shut the door. ‘Hey,’ shouted Bond. But the footsteps went quickly off down the passage.
He cursed himself and cursed the hubris which had made him so sure the battle was won and the enemy in flight.
By now it was dawn – about five o’clock, Bond guessed – and he reflected that a mile or two on was the turning to Le Chiffre’s villa. He had not thought that they would take Vesper there. Now that he realized that Vesper had only been a sprat to catch a mackerel the whole picture became clear.