They finished their drinks and rose to leave, sauntering casually from the deck. At the door to the bar, Bond paused and asked the others to wait for a moment. He went back to the rails and looked down into the sea. Earlier he had noticed the hotel’s little pull-start speed boat making trips close to the beach. It was still there, tied up between the wooden piles of the pier. Smiling to himself, he rejoined Sukie and Nannie, and they went through the bar, where the pianist was now playing Bewitched. A small dance floor had been set up on the beach, and a threeman combo had started to pound out rhythms. The paths were lit by shaded lamps, and people were still swimming, diving into the floodlit pool, laughing with pleasure.
They strolled, arms linked – one on each side of Bond – down Duval, looking at shop windows and peering into the restaurants, all apparently full to capacity. A crowd stood in front of the light grey, English-looking church, staring across the road at half a dozen youngsters who were breakdancing to the music of a ghetto-blaster in front of Fast Buck Freddie’s Department Store.
Eventually, they retraced their footsteps and found themselves in front of Claire, a restaurant that looked both busy and exceptionally good. They walked up to the maître d’, who was hovering by a tall desk in the small garden outside the main restaurant.
‘Boldman,’ said Bond. ‘Party of three. Eight o’clock.’
The maître d’ consulted his book, looked troubled and asked when the booking had been made.
‘Yesterday evening,’ Bond said with conviction.
‘There seems to be some error, Mr Boldman . . .’ the bemused man retorted, a little too firmly for Bond’s liking.
‘I reserved the table specially. It’s the only night we can make this week. I spoke to a young man last night and he assured me I had the table.’
‘Just one moment, sir.’ The maître d’ disappeared into the restaurant and they could see him in agitated conversation with one of the waiters. Finally he came out, smiling. ‘You’re lucky, sir. We’ve had an unexpected cancellation . . .’
‘Not lucky,’ Bond said with his jaw clenched. ‘We had a table reserved. You’re simply giving us our table.’
‘Of course, sir.’
They were shown to a corner table in a pleasant white room. Bond took a seat with his back to the wall and a good view of the entrance. The tablecloths were paper, and there were packets of crayons beside each plate. Bond doodled, drawing a skull and crossbones. Nannie had sketched something vaguely obscene, in red. She leaned forward.
‘I haven’t spotted anyone. Are we being watched?’
‘Oh yes,’ Bond said with a knowing smile as he opened the large menu. ‘Two of them, working each side of the street. Possibly three. Did you notice the man in a yellow shirt and jeans, tall, black and with a lot of rings on his fingers? The other’s a little chap, dark trousers, white shirt, with a tattoo on his left arm – mermaid being indecent with a swordfish, by the look of it. He’s across the street now.’
‘Got ‘em,’ Nannie said as she turned to her menu.
‘Where’s the third?’ asked Sukie.
‘An old blue Buick. Big fellow at the wheel, alone and cruising. Not easy to tell, but he’s been up and down the street a lot. So have others, but he was the only one who didn’t seem to take any interest in people on the sidewalks. I’d say he was the backup. Watch out for them.’
A waiter appeared and took their order. They all chose Conch chowder, the Thai beef salad and, inevitably, Key lime pie. They drank a Californian champagne, which slightly offended Bond’s palate. They talked constantly, keeping off their plans for the night.
When they were out on the street again, Bond told them to be wary.
‘I want you both there, on board and with nobody on your backs, by one o’clock.’
As they walked west towards the Front Street intersection, the man in the yellow shirt kept well back on the other side of the street. The tattooed man let them pass him, then overtook them and let them pass again before they got back to the Pier House. The blue Buick had cruised by twice, and was parked outside the Lobster House, almost opposite the main entrance to the hotel.
‘They have us well staked out,’ Bond murmured as they crossed the street and walked up the drive to the main entrance. There they made a great show of saying goodnight.
Bond was taking no chances. As soon as he got to his room he checked the old, well-tried traps he had laid. The slivers of matchstick were still wedged into the doors of the clothes cupboards and the threads on the drawers were unbroken. His luggage was also intact. It was ten-thirty, time to move. He doubted if SPECTRE’S surveillance team would expect anyone to make a move before the early hours. He had not let the others know that he had slipped the spare charts from Prospero inside his jacket before they left the boat that afternoon. Now he spread them out on the round glass table in the centre of his sitting room and began to study the course from Garrison Bight to Shark Island, making notes. When he was satisfied that he had all the compass bearings correct, and a very good idea of how he could guide a boat to within safe distance of the island, Bond began to dress for action.
He peeled off the T-shirt and wriggled into a light black cotton rollneck from his case. The jeans were replaced by a pair of black slacks, which he always packed. Next, he took out the wide belt which had been so useful when Der Haken had him locked up in Salzburg. He removed the Q Branch Toolkit and spread the contents out on the table. He checked the small explosive charges and their electronic connectors, adding from the false bottom of his second briefcase four small flat packets of plastique explosive, each no larger than a stick of chewing gum. Into the inner pockets of the belt he fitted four small lengths of fuse, some extra thin electric wire, half a dozen tiny detonators, a miniature pin-light torch, not much larger than the filter of a cigarette – and one other very important item.
Together the explosives would not dispose of an entire building, but they could be useful with locks or door hinges. He buckled on the belt, threading it through the loops on his trousers, then opened up the shoulder bag which contained the wet suit and snorkelling equipment. Sweating a little, he struggled into the wet suit and clipped the knife into place on the belt. The ASP, two spare magazines, the charts and the baton he put into the waterproof pouch threaded on to the belt. He carried the flippers, mask, underwater torch and snorkel in the shoulder bag.
Leaving the suite, he kept inside the hotel for as long as possible. There was still a great deal of noise coming from the bars, restaurant and makeshift dance floor and he finally emerged through an exit on the ocean side of the festivities.
Squatting down with his back against the wall, Bond unzipped the shoulder bag and pulled on the flippers, then slowly edged himself towards the water. The music and laughter were loud behind him as he climbed over the short stretch of rock marking the right-hand boundary of the hotel bathing area. He washed the mask out, slipped it on and adjusted the snorkel. Grasping the torch, he slid straight down into the water. He swam gently round the metal shark guard which protected swimmers using the hotel beach. It took about ten minutes to find the thick wooden piles under the Havana Docks bar deck, but he surfaced only a couple of metres from the moored motor boat.
Any sound he made clambering aboard would not have been heard above the noise coming from the hotel, and once inside the neat little craft, he could quickly check the fuel gauges with the pin-light torch. The beach staff were efficient and the tank had been filled, presumably ready for the next morning’s work.