“I dare say you’ve survived much worse.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have much to report. Dr. Lindenbeek is in custody and the matter is being handled by the Securité d’État. We’re out of the loop as far as he is concerned.”
“That’s all right, as long as the Belgians hold on to him. For the time being anyway. No leads regarding Harding or this Chinese man?
“None. They could very well still be in Brussels. Then again . . .”
“I understand. Double-O Seven, I want you to continue your work with Station B for at least another day. If nothing turns up, come back to England. I’m afraid I’ll have to give the Minister news he’s not going to like.”
Bond could hear the disappointment in her voice. He had let her down. “Ms. Hollander and I are going to go through Interpol files tomorrow and try to determine who Lee Ming really is. He looked familiar somehow.”
“Fine. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Bond hung up and said nothing. Gina picked up on Bond’s gloom and said, “Hey, remember what I said you needed tonight? Come on, let’s go have dinner. The restaurant downstairs is fabulous. Change your clothes or do whatever it is you Brits do to get ready for an evening out with a gorgeous, fun-loving Belgian girl.”
They met again in the hotel’s luxurious bar, Le 19ème, which was laid out in the style of a gentleman’s club, with Corinthian columns and deep leather chairs.
She was dressed in a low-cut, short black cocktail dress that revealed more of her legs than Bond had previously seen. The single pearl on her necklace dangled teasingly at the top of her pronounced cleavage. Her eyes sparkled.
“You look good enough to eat,” Bond said.
“So do you,” she said, taking his arm. He was dressed in a tailor-made Brioni dinner suit.
L’Alban Chambon is considered one of Belgium’s finest restaurants. It is tastefully designed with wood floors, white walls, and intricately carved blue molding. There are mirrors on two sides of the room, creating the illusion that the room is much larger than it really is. The head-waiter showed Bond and Gina to a small round table covered by a white tablecloth on top of a blue one.
As they sat, a tall man wearing a chef’s hat approached them.
“Monsieur Bond?” he asked.
“Dominique!” Bond said. He shook hands with the chef de cuisine.
How good to see you again. This is my colleague, Gina Hollander. Gina, this is one of Europe’s best chefs, Dominique Michou.”
She spoke to him in French. “Pleased to meet you.” Mr. Michou kissed her hand, then said, “I would like you to try our featured special tonight.”
“We’d be delighted.”
“Splendid. I’ll turn you over to Frederick, then. Enjoy your meal.”
Michou bowed and returned to the kitchen. Frederick, the head-waiter, presented them with menus and a wine list. Bond ordered a full-bodied red wine, Chateau Magdaleine Bouhou.
New Age solo piano music was playing softly over the sound system. A plaintive, high-pitched male voice began to improvise lyrics over the music. Gina closed her eyes and smiled.
“You know this music?” Bond asked.
She nodded. “It’s a Belgian composer named Wim Mertens. He’s contemporary and does some beautiful things. I find his music very sad at times.”
Bond shrugged. “If I have any taste in music at all, it’s for jazz and big band. Ever hear of the Ink Spots?”
“I don’t think so.”
When the wine came, Bond toasted Gina and they drank together. Then he asked, “Gina, what is your cover?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Do you use a cover? In the old days when MI6 was known as Universal Exports, and later Transworld Consortium, I traveled the world as an importer/exporter. What do you tell people when they ask you what you do?”
“My memoir in college was in fashion design,” she said. “I really am a designer, so that’s what I say. I’m partners with a friend of mine from school. She owns a dress shop in Brussels. We design things together.”
“You look the part, then.”
“Thank you. And what do you tell people now that MI6 is no longer an ‘importer/exporter’?”
Bond smiled wryly. “Usually I say I’m a civil servant. That tends to shut them up right away.”
A waiter brought them salade d’asperges a l’oeuf sur le plat et crème d’estragon, which was made of tender white and green Belgian asparagus with a poached egg on top and creamy tarragon sauce on the side.
“You’re not like other Brits,” she said after a while.
“Oh?”
“We have always seen Brits as very serious and easily shocked. Except for the ones who come over and booze it up for a weekend.”
“I am neither,” Bond said.
“No! You like your alcohol, but it does not seem like you would be easily shocked. Another way I’ve always thought of British men is that they are ‘real’ gentlemen. You are a gentleman.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.”
“What do you think of Belgian women?” she asked, licking a bit of sauce from the corner of her mouth. Bond realized that this was the first time he had seen her without a toothpick in her mouth.
“Are you a typical Belgian woman?”
She laughed. “I don’t think so. I’m not sure we can be classified, since Belgium is such a multilingual country. The French girls in the south are a little different from the Flemish girls in the north, and so on. We are perhaps not as wild and sexy as Dutch girls.”
“You’re not? Bloody hell . .
That made her laugh. “I mean, we’re as sexually open as any other European girls, I suppose, we just don’t talk about it. It depends on the level of education, I think. Am I making sense?”
“You’re saying that actions speak louder than words?”
She knew he was teasing her. “I had better be careful,” she said, wagging her finger at him. “My English is not so good. You will twist my words and make me say something I’ll be sorry for later!”
The main courses came. She was having filet de boeuf poele, legumes de saison frits, et sauce choron—sauteed fillet of beef with fried vegetables and choron sauce. He tried the chef’s special, medallion de veau de lait et risotto aux legumes et parmesan—fillet of milk-fed veal and rice with vegetables and Parmesan cheese. The rice was packed in the shape of a hockey puck with potatoes mixed in.
“This is delicious,” she said, taking a dainty bite of beef.
“Monsieur Michou does it again,” Bond said. The veal was light and tender, cooked a perfect medium so that the pink center was juicy and succulent.
“How important is this formula that was stolen?” she asked.
“Quite, although I think it’s more important to Britain for political reasons than for scientific ones.”
“Why?”
“Britain is no longer the empire it once was. My superiors believe that this process will give us more face, I suppose, and it’s worth a fortune. Our Ministry of Defence have visions of profits dancing before their eyes, but it’s more about proving to the world that we can still come up with technological advances.”
Dessert was a Belgian specialty, one of Bond’s favorites—veritable “Cafe Litgeois”—a cold, creamy coffee milk shake that left white mustaches on their upper lips. Gina gently scraped hers clean with her index finger and then licked off the excess cream. Bond found the sight incredibly erotic.
When Bond and Gina finished, it was nearly eleven o’clock.
“It is said that in Belgium, dinner is the evening’s entertainment,” Gina said. “Usually, a night out might consist of the theater or a show, or perhaps a dinner—but not both. Dinner in Belgium is a ritual to be savored and never rushed. It sometimes lasts hours. The time flew by, didn’t it?” Bond could see that she was slightly nervous about how the rest of the evening might go. After they had drunk two bottles of the wine between them, she was more relaxed and flirtatious.