It took less than an hour to write the report, which he sealed in an envelope and sent up to M by messenger. There was little of importance in the drawers of his desk, so he opened the small wall safe, provided for all senior officers. When he had left on the previous Saturday, the safe had been empty, but M's instructions, combined with the clandestine wink, had been specific.
Lying inside the safe were four slim buff folders, each flagged `restricted and classified'. A quick look inside the first file told him these were the up-to-date reports on the four assassinations that had taken place-in Rome, London, Paris and Washington during the previous week. There was no doubt in his mind that M was quietly ordering him to carry on investigating the situation.
Swiftly, he slid the folders into his briefcase, flicked the combination locks and left his office. At the main entrance he signed out, appending the words `on extended leave', and adding `Contact at private number'. He then strode out into a pleasantly warm and sunny London afternoon.
Within minutes, as he walked briskly across Regent's Park towards Clarence Gate and Baker Street, he knew there was surveillance on him.
Anybody who has spent a lifetime in the world of secrets, leading double existences, prowling those dark and maze-like alleys where truth is so often fiction, and reality becomes illusion, is bound to develop sensitive antennae: a sixth sense.
He could never have given anybody a logical explanation of how his antennae worked, but work they did. He knew he was being observed and probably followed, though there was no way he could immediately identify those who watched him.
On reaching Baker Street, he decided to sort out the sheep from the goats by giving them a run for their money. Hailing a passing taxi he told the driver to take him to Austin Reed s in Regent Street. As the driver pulled out into the traffic, Bond glanced back, just catching sight of a young man in jeans and a black shirt desperately trying to flag down another cab.
Austin Reed's store occupies almost an entire block on the west side of Regent Street, a few blocks from Piccadilly Circus. As the cab pulled up, so Bond slipped the driver a five pound note and was on to the pavement almost before the vehicle had come to a stop. He had no intention of going into the store. Instead, he walked quickly towards what Londoners usually refer to as `The Dilly', and disappeared down the steps to the London Transport Underground system.
He took a train to South Kensington where he intended to change on to the Circle Line, to take a train back to Sloane Square which would bring him within walking distance of his flat in the pleasant Regency house which stands on a quiet tree-lined street off the King's Road.
As he negotiated the pedestrian tunnels at South Kensington he realized that the young man he had seen in Baker Street was not only still with him but he had also manoeuvred himself into a position some twenty feet in front of him, anticipating Bond's destination. The young man was a professional and Bond knew where there is one experienced watcher then two or three others are usually near at hand.
The adrenalin began to pump, and his nerve ends tingled. The very fact of being followed created a tension of its own, and he felt his muscles involuntarily tighten. He had no idea where this team came from. For all he knew, they could be part of some foreign service, or more likely, he considered-part of the famed Watcher Service of MIS.
The platform was crowded even though the usual rush hour would not get under way for another hour or so. The man in jeans and black shirt lounged against the slick, tiled wall, near a poster proclaiming `Cats.
Now and For Ever.
Bond placed himself directly in front of the watcher, giving the young man a good view of his back, waiting for the next train to rumble from the tunnel. It pulled up with a hiss of automatic doors opening, and there was a surge forward as people tried to board the carriages while others eased their way out.
He stayed back, as if he had changed his mind about getting on the train. Then, he turned, took a pace forward and asked the young man if he had the time. The watcher lazily raised his left arm to look at his watch and Bond gave him a quick, hard jab to the chin with the heel of his right hand.
The watcher's head snapped back, his eyes taking on, a glazed look of surprise.
`There s a man in trouble here,' Bond shouted in the general direction of a uniformed official, before he lunged for the closing doors of the nearest carriage. As the train pulled out, he saw a small knot of people form around the crumpled watcher.
* * * The street off King's Road where Bond lived was a cul-de-sac, the preferred kind of location for anyone in his profession. `You either live out in the open, with a lot of flat ground between you and the rest of the world, or you choose a street with only one entrance or exit,' one of the instructors had told him years ago. `Preferably, a short street,' the old expert had added.
He knew all his neighbours, and their cars, by sight, and could spot a strange car or person in a second. Now, as he finally turned the corner and entered his street, Bond realized that, whoever they were, this surveillance team was serious. He saw not only a very strange vehicle a small closed van but also a uniformed road sweeper, with his high wheeled cart, who was making his rounds, working as Bond's old housekeeper would have said `as though dead lice were dropping off him'.
The road sweeper was a total stranger, and not the man Bond was used to seeing.
He showed no sign of having noticed anything out of the ordinary as he put his key in the latch and entered the house through the front door. A pile of mail lay on the mat.
His housekeeper, May, was up in Scotland with her nephew and his wife, so Bond had taken his usual extra precautions slivers of wood in the doorjamb, invisible thread across windows, just in case anyone had tried to bypass his sophisticated alarm system. Everything was in place, but that did not mean a thing. If he was truly the target of a tight surveillance operation, there could be a tap on his telephone without anyone gaining entrance to the house.
He dumped the mail on his sitting-room table, went to the ornate Empire desk and unlocked one of the larger drawers and removed what appeared to be a normal telephone. Unplugging his house phone from its modular jack, he replaced it with the equipment taken from the desk drawer. He did not trust pocket tap detectors, and certainly could not call in the delousing department from headquarters. The telephone now in use was a state-of-the-art piece of equipment, a very distant cousin of what used to be called the Neutralizer phone. With this instrument in place, even the best wire tap was defenceless. The micro circuits within the telephone automatically sent out signals which could not be captured on tape or headphones.
Instead, a would-be eavesdropper would be treated to a high-pitched signal known to cause severe deafness for a minimum of forty-eight hours one of the reasons the service instructions forbade the use of these devices on a permanent basis. The other consideration was cost, for each unit of the Electronic Countermeasures Telephone (ECMT) or `Squealerphone', as it was often called, ran to almost Ĺ4,000.
Having dealt with communications, he took the briefcase into his small bedroom, felt along the gleaming white painted wainscot until he found a tiny knot of wood which he pulled back to reveal a large, secret fireproof steel safe. Quickly working the combination, he slid the briefcase inside then locked everything and slid the panel back into place.
Having dealt with the important matter, Bond now turned his attention to the day's maiclass="underline" ironically enough there was a telephone bill, as well as a red electricity account, meaning that it was time to pay up or lose power, four pieces of junk mail, and a letter in a dark blue envelope, addressed correctly in a bold hand female, he thought which he did not recognize.