“What’s that?”
“We have a security leak. Someone knew I was coming. I was attacked on the E19.”
“Really? That was you? I heard about the accidents on the road! Are you all right?”
Bond removed his gunmetal case and took out a cigarette. He offered one to her, but she shook her head.
“I’m fine, but they’re not,” he said. “Three men on motorcycles. Came from nowhere, tried to kill me. I’m afraid a lorry was smashed, and a few passenger cars, too. I tried to call London earlier, but everyone was in a bloody meeting.”
She pointed to the desk. “I assure you there’s been no security breach here. The phone is there. Please.”
Bond reached for the phone and removed from the inside pocket of his jacket a device that looked like a small black light meter. He pulled out a three-inch antenna and flicked a switch. He scanned the phone with the detector.
“I do that every morning, Mr. Bond,” Gina said. “With more sophisticated equipment.”
“I doubt it could do much better than this little toy,” Bond said, satisfied with the reading he got. The CSS 8700V Bug Alert was usually accurate. “Sorry, I had to check.”
“That’s all right.” She went to the kitchenette to get the drinks.
Bond picked up the phone and called the secure line again. This time Tanner picked up.
“Hello, James, sorry I was away earlier. M wanted me to—”
“Never mind, did Helena give you the message?”
“Yes, she did. We’re looking into it now. How many people knew you were on the way to Brussels?”
“Just you and M. Moneypenny and Helena, of course. Major Boothroyd, Head of S., Records . . . well, I suppose there could be quite a few people, Bill.”
“No one outside the firm?”
“No, not even my housekeeper. She never knows where I am.”
“Right,” Tanner said. “Look, don’t worry, we’ll see if we can find the hole and plug it. In the meantime, M has new orders for you.”
“Oh?”
“Since Agent Hollander has tracked down Harding, you are to observe him. Repeat, observe him. We want to find out who he’s working for or dealing with. He must have Skin 17 or he wouldn’t have fled the UK.”
“Understood. You do realize that there is the possibility that he doesn’t have it anymore. . . . What would you like me to do when he makes a move?”
“Use your judgment. We’d like him brought back to the UK, certainly. We’re already making arrangements for extradition. If it looks like we might lose Skin 17, do whatever it takes to retrieve it.”
Bond signed off and stretched back in the large reclining leather armchair behind the desk. Right on cue, Gina brought Bond’s vodka and a bottle of Orval beer for herself. She sat on the sofa bed and put her feet up.
He held up his glass and said, “Cheers.” He took a sip of the ice cold vodka and was pleasantly surprised. “Wolfschmidt from Riga. Well done. I think you and I will get along splendidly.”
“Thanks. I save it for special occasions,” she said. “I heard that Brits are hard to impress.” She laughed.
“Quite the opposite. England is such a bore most of the time, so we’re really quite easy. Anyway, you impressed this one. Is that the stuff made by Trappist monks?” he asked, indicating her beer.
She nodded, taking a long drink from the bottle. She managed to keep the toothpick sticking out of her mouth as she swallowed. For the first time, Bond noticed how fit she really was. Her shapely, strong leg muscles could be traced through her clothing. Her arms were also well toned. Although she was dressed as if she might be the manager of an upmarket women’s department store, the toothpick in her mouth gave her an impish, mischievous quality. There was no mistaking that this woman was streetwise. She was a mature little Peter Pan with breasts, which also happened to be quite shapely.
“So, tell me about Dr. Harding,” Bond said.
“When I got the alert on him from London, I ran a routine check with immigration at the Midi terminal. They caught him on camera, coming through as Donald Peters. Once I knew that, it was a matter of finding the right hotel with a Donald Peters registered there. He was at the Métropole. I waited at the cafe just outside. I drank a hell °f a lot of coffee! He finally came out last night after dinner.” She giggled slightly and said, “He went to the street where women . . . where Women sell sexual favors.”
Bond smiled with her. “Did he have a good time?”
She blushed. “Don’t ask me,” she said. “Afterward he went back to the hotel. I tipped a bellhop to phone my pager if he left. He was there all night. This morning he took a taxi somewhere . . . and I lost him. He hasn’t checked out of the hotel, though.”
“So there was nearly a complete period of twenty-four hours when he could have done anything.”
“I’m afraid so.”
“And he could be making a deal right now.”
“It’s possible.”
“We had better go,” he said, sitting up. “I want to get into his room.”
SEVEN
BITTER SUITE
BOND LEFT GINA, drove the Jaguar to the hotel, and left it with the valet. She followed him and sat in her usual seat in the sidewalk cafe outside the building. The plan was that she would watch the front while Bond was inside.
As he checked in, he was reminded of the time he had stayed at the Métropole when he was a young man. He had become involved with a French film star who had a husband in Paris and a career in London. They would meet in Brussels to escape the press. It was a stormy, passionate affair that went on for several months before she landed a role in a picture being shot in the Far East. He never saw her again.
As a hotel catering to the rich and famous, the Métropole’s staff respected the guests’ privacy. It was everything Bond expected from a good hotel with tasteful luxury and unique personal character. Full °f gilded coffers, Italian stucco, modern wrought iron, Renaissance-style blue stained-glass windows, and glittering chandeliers, it was a true palace. Bond was given a room on the fifth floor that he thought would do nicely. He unpacked his bag and removed an electric toothbrush. He snapped off the brush and unscrewed the bottom of the device. Next to the three C-cell batteries was a set of thin, stiff wires. Old-fashioned skeleton keys were still being used at the hotel, so Q Branch’s electric pick gun would be the best tool for the job. Made of aluminum, it could pick pin tumbler locks much faster and easier than hand picks and could even open some of the pick-resistant locks that other tools wouldn’t.
Bond slipped it into the pocket of his jacket, then reached for the phone. He called the front desk and asked to be connected to Donald Peters’s room. There was no answer. Good. That was what Bond wanted.
He checked the magazine in his Walther PPK and slipped the gun in the custom-made Berns chamois shoulder holster, then left the room. He descended the grand staircase two floors and peered down the corridor. There was no one around. He moved quickly to Room 1919 and knocked. When there was no answer, he took out the pick gun, selected an attachment, and had the door unlocked in three seconds.
Closing the door behind him, he moved from the entry hall to the sitting room, where Harding had deposited his attaché case and other personal items. Harding had written “Hospital Erasme” on a notepad next to the phone. Bond tried the briefcase, but it was locked. He selected another attachment for the pick gun and inserted the wires into the keyholes. The snaps flipped open.
There wasn’t much there. A map of Brussels, rail timetables, calculator, paper, pens . . . and a strange sketch on a piece of physician’s stationery.
It was the torso of a man with a small rectangle drawn over his left breast. Bond noted the name and address on the stationery and replaced everything.