Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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11 | BEDTIME STORY

I hoisted myself up on to the drain board of the sink just beside him so that he could talk to me quietly – and so that I could be near to him. I refused another cigarette, and he lit one and gazed for a long minute into the mirror watching the two gangsters. I looked, too. The two men just stared back with a passive, indifferent hostility that seeped steadily across the room like poison gas. I didn’t much like their indifference and their watchfulness. It seemed so powerful, so implacable, as if the odds were on their side and they had all the time in the world. But this James Bond didn’t seem worried. He just seemed to be weighing them up, like a chess player. There was a certitude of power, of superiority, in his eyes that worried me. He hadn’t seen these men in action. He couldn’t possibly know what they were capable of, how at any moment they might just blaze away with their guns, blowing our heads off like coconuts in a circus sideshow, and then toss our bodies in the lake with stones to keep them down. But then James Bond began talking, and I forgot my nightmares and just watched his face and listened.

‘In England,’ he said, ‘when a man, or occasionally a woman, comes over from the other side, from the Russian side, with important information, there’s a fixed routine. Take Berlin, for instance, and that’s the most usual come-over route. To begin with they get taken to intelligence headquarters and get treated at first with extra suspicion. That’s to try and take care of double agents – people who pretend to come over and, once they’ve been cleared by security, begin spying on us from inside, so to speak, and pass their stuff back to the Russians. There are also triple agents – people who do what the doubles have done, but change their minds and, under our control, pass phoney intelligence back to the Russians. Do you understand? It’s nothing but a complicated game, really. But then so’s international politics, diplomacy – all the trappings of nationalism and the power complex that goes on between countries. Nobody will stop playing the game. It’s like the hunting instinct.’

‘Yes, I see. It all seems idiotic to my generation. Like playing that old game “Attaque”, really. We need some more Jack Kennedys. It’s all these old people about. They ought to hand the world over to younger people who haven’t got the idea of war stuck in their subconscious. As if it were the only solution. Like beating children. It’s much the same thing. It’s all out of date – Stone Age stuff.’

He smiled. ‘As a matter of fact I agree, but don’t spread your ideas too widely or I’ll find myself out of a job. Anyway, once the come-over has got through the strainer in Berlin, he’s flown to England and the bargain gets made – you tell us all you know about the Russian rocket sites and in exchange we’ll give you a new name, a British passport and a hideout where the Russians will never find you. That’s what they’re most frightened of, of course, the Russians getting after them and killing them. And, if they play, they get the choice of Canada, Australia, New Zealand or Africa. So, when they’ve told all they know, they get flown out to the country they’ve chosen, and there a reception committee run by the local police, a very hush-hush affair, of course, takes them over and they’re gradually eased into a job and into a community just as if they were a bona fide immigrant. It nearly always works all right. They get homesick to begin with, and have trouble settling down, but some member of the reception committee will always be at hand to give them any help they need.’

James Bond lit another cigarette. ‘I’m not telling you anything the Russians don’t know. The only secret side of the business is the addresses of these people. There’s a man I’ll call Boris. He’s been settled in Canada, in Toronto. He was a prize – twenty-four carat. He was a top naval constructor in Kronstadt – high up in their nuclear submarine team. He got away to Finland and then to stockholm. We picked him up and flew him to England. The Russians don’t often say anything about their defectors – just curse and let them go. If they’re important, they round up their families and ship them off to Siberia – to frighten other waverers. But it was different with Boris. They sent out a general call to their secret services to eliminate him. As luck would have it, an organization called spectre somehow listened in.’

James Bond took a hard look at the two men on the other side of the room. They hadn’t moved. They sat there and watched and waited. What for? James Bond turned back to me. ‘I’m not boring you?’

‘Oh, no. Of course not. It’s thrilling. These spectre people. Haven’t I read about them somewhere? In the papers?’

‘I expect you have. Less than a year ago there was this business of the stolen atomic bombs. It was called Operation Thunderball. Remember?’ His eyes went far away. ‘It was in the Bahamas.’

‘Oh, yes. Of course I remember. It was in all the papers. I could hardly believe it. It was like something out of a thriller. Why? Were you mixed up in it?’

James Bond smiled. ‘On the sidelines. But the point is that we never cleaned up spectre. The top man got away. It was a kind of independent spy network – “The Special Executive for Counter-espionage, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion” they call themselves. Well, they’ve got going again and, as I say, they came to hear that the Russians wanted Boris killed and somehow they found out where he was. Don’t ask me how. These people are too damned well informed for comfort. So they put it to the top K.G.B. man in Paris, the local head of the Russian Secret Service, that they’d do the job for one hundred thousand pounds. Presumably Moscow agreed, because the next thing that happened was that Ottawa – the famous Mounties – got on to us. They have a Special Branch that we work with pretty closely on this sort of thing, and they reported that there was an ex-Gestapo man in Toronto, chap called Horst Uhlmann, making contact with the gangs there, and did we know anything about him? It seemed he wanted some unspecified foreigner bumped off and was prepared to pay fifty thousand dollars for the job. Well, two and two got put together and some bright chap in our show had a hunch this might be an attempt on Boris by the Russians. So,’ James Bond’s mouth curled down, ‘I was sent out to look into the business.’

He smiled at me. ‘You wouldn’t rather switch on the television?’

‘Oh, no. Go on please.’

‘Well, you know they’ve been having a lot of trouble in Toronto. It’s anyway a tough town, but now gang war has broken out in a big way, and you probably read that the Mounties even went so far as to call in two top C.I.D. sleuths from Scotland Yard to help them out. One of these C.I.D. chaps had managed to plant a smart young Canadian in “The Mechanics”, which is the name of the toughest Toronto gang, with affiliations over the border with Chicago and Detroit. And it was this young man who got wind of Uhlmann and what he wanted done. Well, I and my Mountie pals went to work and to cut a long story short we found out that it was Boris who was the target and that The Mechanics had agreed to do the job last Thursday – that’s just about a week ago. Uhlmann had gone to ground and we couldn’t get a smell of him. All we could discover from our man with The Mechanics was that he had agreed to lead the murder squad that was to consist of three top gunmen from the mob. It was to be a frontal attack on the apartment where Boris lived. Nothing fancy. They were just going to blast their way through the front door with sub-machine-guns, shoot him to bits, and get away. It was to be at night, just before midnight, and The Mechanics would mount a permanent watch on the apartment house to see that Boris came home from his job and didn’t go out again.

‘Well, apart from protecting Boris, my main job was to get this Horst Uhlmann, because by now we were as certain as could be that he was a spectre man, and one of my jobs is to go after these people wherever they show up. Of course, we couldn’t leave Boris in danger, but if we got him away to safety there would be no attempt on his life and so no Uhlmann. So I had to make a rather unpleasant suggestion.’ James Bond smiled grimly. ‘Unpleasant for me, that is. From his photographs, I had noticed that there was a superficial resemblance between Boris and me – about my age, tall, dark, clean-shaven so I took a look at him from a ghost car one day – that’s an undercover prowl car – and watched how he walked and what he wore. Then I suggested that we get Boris away on the day before the murder job, and that I should take his place on the last walk back to his apartment.’

I couldn’t help saying anxiously, ‘Oh, but you shouldn’t have taken the risk. Supposing they’d changed the plan. Supposing they’d decided to do it as you walked down the street, or with a time bomb or something!’

He shrugged. ‘We thought of all that. It was a calculated risk and it’s those I’m paid for taking.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, here I am. But it wasn’t nice walking down that street, and I was glad to get inside. The Mounties had taken over the flat opposite to Boris and I knew I was all right and simply had to play the tethered goat while the sportsmen shot the wild game. I could have stayed out of the flat, hidden somewhere in the building until it was all over, but I had a hunch that the goat must be a real goat, and I was right, because at eleven o’clock the telephone rang and a man’s voice said, “Is that Mr Boris?” giving his assumed name. I said, “Yes. Who is dat?” trying to sound foreign, and the man said, “Thank you. Telephone Directory here. We’re just checking the subscribers in your district. ’Night.” I said goodnight and thanked my stars I had been there to take the bogus call that was to make sure Boris was at home.

‘The last hour was nervous work. There was going to be a lot of gunfire and probably a lot of death, and no one likes the prospect of those things even if they don’t expect to be hit. I had a couple of guns, heavy ones that really stop people, and at ten to twelve I took up my position to the right of the door in an angle of solid masonry and got ready just in case Uhlmann or one of the hoodlums managed to bust through the Mounties across the passage. To tell you the truth, as the minutes went by and I could imagine the killer car coming down the street and the men piling out and running softly up the stairs, I wished I had accepted the Mounties’ offer that one of their men should share this vigil, as they called it, with me. But it would have been a five-hour tête-à-tête and, apart from not knowing what we would talk about during all that time, I’ve always had a preference for operating alone. It’s just the way I’m made. Well, the minutes and the seconds ticked by and then, bang on time, at five minutes to midnight, I heard a rush of rubber soles on the stairs and then all hell broke loose.’

James Bond paused. He rubbed a hand down over his face. It was a gesture that was either to clear his mind’s eye or to try and wipe some memory away from it. Then he lit another cigarette and went on.

‘I heard the lieutenant in charge of the Mountie party shout, “It’s the law! Get ’em up!” And then there was a mixture of single shots and bursts from the chopper’ – he grinned – ‘sorry, sub-machine-gun – and somebody screamed. Then the lieutenant shouted, “Get that man!” and the next moment the lock blew off the door beside me and a man charged in. He held a smoking machine-gun tight against the hip, which is the way to use them, and he whirled from right to left in the bedsitter looking for Boris. I knew it was Uhlmann, the ex-Gestapo man. One’s had to get to know the smell of a German, and of a Russian for the matter of that, in my line of work, and I had him in my sights. I shot at his gun and blasted it out of his hands. But he was quick. He jumped behind the open door. The door was only a thin bit of wood. I couldn’t take a chance on him having another gun and firing first, so I sprayed a wide Z of bullets through the wood, bending my knees lower as I did so. Just as well I did this, because he fired a quick burst that nearly parted my hair when I was almost on my knees. But two of my bullets had got him, in the left shoulder and right hip as it turned out, and he crashed down behind the door and lay quiet.

‘The rest of the battle outside had disappeared down the stairs after the gunmen, but a wounded Mountie suddenly appeared at the entrance to my room on hands and knees to help me. He said, “Want a hand, feller?” and Uhlmann fired through the door at the voice and … kand, well, he killed the man. But that gave me the height of Uhlmann’s gun and I fired almost as he did, and then I ran out into the centre of the room to give him some more if need be. But he didn’t need any more. He was still alive, and when the remains of the Mounties came back up the stairs, we took him down and into an ambulance and tried to get him to talk in hospital. But he wouldn’t – a mixture of Gestapo and spectre is a good one – and he died the next morning.’

James Bond looked me in the eyes, but his own didn’t see me. He said, ‘We lost two of our side and another wounded. They lost the German, and one of theirs, and the other two won’t last long. But the battlefield was a nasty sight and, well,’ his face looked suddenly drawn and tired, ‘I’ve seen enough of this sort of thing. After the various post-mortems were over I wanted to get away. My headquarters, and the Mounties backed them up, wanted me to report the whole case to Washington, to our opposite numbers there, to get their help in cleaning up the American end of The Mechanics gang. The Mechanics had been given a nasty jolt, and the Mounties Special Branch thought it would be a good idea to follow up while they were still groggy. I said all right, but that I would like to drive down and not just dash off in an aeroplane or train. That was allowed so long as I didn’t take more than three days and I hired this car and started at dawn this morning. I was going all right, pretty fast, when I ran into the hell of a storm, the tail of yours I suppose. I got through it as far as Lake George and I meant to stay the night there, but it looked such a hellish place that when I saw a sign up at a side road advertising this motel I took a chance.’ He smiled at me, and now he looked quite cheerful again. ‘Perhaps something told me you were at the end of the road and that you were in trouble. Anyway, I had a puncture a mile from here, and here I am.’ He smiled again, and reached out and put his hand on mine on the counter. ‘Funny the way things work out!’

‘But you must be absolutely beat, driving all that way.’

‘I’ve got something for that. Be a good girl and give me another cup of coffee.’

While I busied myself with the percolator, he opened his case and took out a small bottle of white pills. He took out two and when I gave him the coffee he swallowed them down. ‘Benzedrine. That’ll keep me awake for tonight. I’ll fit in some sleep tomorrow.’ His eyes went to the mirror. ‘Hullo. Here they come.’ He gave me a smile of encouragement. ‘Now just don’t worry. Get some sleep. I’ll be around to see there’s no trouble.’

The music on the radio faded and musical chimes sounded midnight.

12 | TO SLEEP – PERCHANCE TO DIE!

While Sluggsy made for the back door and went out into the night, the thin man came slowly over to us. He leaned against the edge of the counter. ‘Okay, folks. Break it up. It’s midnight. We’re turning off the electricity. My friend’s getting emergency oil-lamps from the storehouse. No sense wasting juice. Mr Sanguinetti’s orders.’ The words were friendly and reasonable. Had they decided to give up their plans, whatever they were, because of this man Bond? I doubted it. The thoughts that listening to James Bond’s story had driven away came flooding back. I was going to have to sleep with these two men in the adjoining cabins on both sides of me. I must make my room impregnable. But they had the pass-key! I must get this man Bond to help me.

James Bond yawned hugely. ‘Well, I’ll certainly be glad of some sleep. Came a long way today and I’ve got plenty more to cover tomorrow. And you must be ready for bed, too, with all your worries.’

‘Come again, mister?’ The thin man’s eyes had sharpened.

‘It’s a pretty responsible job you’ve got.’

‘What job’s that?’

‘Oh, being an insurance assessor. On a valuable property like this. Must be worth half a million dollars, I’d say. By the way, are either of you bonded?’

‘No, we ain’t. Mr Sanguinetti don’t need to bond no one what works for him.’

‘That’s a great compliment to his staff. Must have good men. Quite right to put a lot of trust in them. Incidentally, what’s the name of his insurance company?’

‘Metro Accident and Home.’ The thin man still leaned relaxed against the counter, but the grey face was now tense. ‘Why? What’s it to you, mister? Suppose you quit with the double-talk and say what’s on your mind.’

Bond said carelessly, ‘Miss Michel here was telling me the motel hadn’t been doing so well. I gather the place hasn’t been accepted for membership in Quality Courts or Holiday Inns or Congress. Difficult to do much trade without one of those affiliations. And all this trouble to send up you fellows to count the spoons and turn off the electric light and so on.’ James Bond looked sympathetic. ‘Just crossed my mind that the business might be on the rocks. Too bad if it is. Nice set-up here, and a fine site.’

The red fleck that I had seen once, terribly, before was now in the thin man’s eyes. He said softly, ‘Just suppose you bag your lip, mister. I ain’t standin’ for no more limey cracks, get me? You suggestin’ this ain’t legit? Mebbe you think we set one up, huh?’

‘Now don’t burn yourself up, Mr Horowitz. No need to sing the weeps.’ James Bond smiled broadly. ‘You see I know the lingo, too.’ His smile suddenly went. ‘And I also know where it comes from. Now, do you get me?’

I suppose he meant this was gangster, jailbird language. The thin man certainly thought so. He looked startled, but now he had conquered his anger and he just said, ‘Okay, wise guy. I’ve got the photo. You gumshoes are all the same – looking for dirt where there ain’t none. Now, where in hell’s that pal of mine? C’mon. Let’s hit the pad.’

As we filed out through the back door, the lights went out. James Bond and I stopped, but the thin man went on along the covered way as if he could see in the dark. Sluggsy appeared round the corner of the building carrying two oil-lamps. He handed one to each of us. His naked face, yellow in the light, split into a grin. ‘Happy dreams, folks!’

James Bond followed me over to my cabin and came inside. He shut the door. ‘Damned if I know what they’re up to, but the first thing to do is see that you’re properly closed down for the night. Now then, let’s see.’ He prowled round the room, examining the window fastenings, inspecting the hinges on the door, estimating the size of the ventilator louvres. He seemed satisfied. He said, ‘There’s only the door. You say they’ve got the master key. We’ll wedge the door, and when I’ve gone just move the desk over as an extra barricade.’ He went into the bathroom, tore off strips of lavatory paper, moistened them and made them into firm wedges. He rammed several under the door, turned the handle and pulled. They held, but could have been shaken loose by ramming. He took the wedges out again and gave them to me. Then he put his hand to the belt of his trousers and took out a short, stumpy revolver. ‘Ever fired one of these things?’

I said I’d shot at rabbits with a long-barrelled .22 target pistol when I was young.

‘Well, this is a Smith and Wesson Police Positive. A real stopper. Remember to aim low. Hold your arm out straight like this.’ He showed me. ‘And try to squeeze the trigger and not snatch at it. But it won’t really matter. I’ll hear it and I’ll come running. Now remember. You’ve got absolute protection. The windows are good solid stuff and there’s no way of getting in between the glass slats, short of smashing them.’ He smiled. ‘Trust these motel designers. They know all there is to know about break-ins. These hoodlums won’t take a shot at you through them in the dark, but, just in case, leave your bed where it is and make up a camp bed with some cushions and bedding in that far corner on the floor. Put the gun under your pillow. Pull the desk in front of the door and balance the television set on the edge of it so that if anyone barges the door they knock it off. That’ll wake you and then you just fire a shot through the door, close to the handle, where the man will be standing, and listen for the squawk. Got it?’

I said yes, as happily as I could, and wished he would stay in the room with me. But I hadn’t the guts to ask him, and anyway he seemed to have his own plans.

He came up to me and kissed me gently on the lips. I was so surprised I just stood there. He said lightly, ‘I’m sorry, Viv, but you’re a beautiful girl. In those overalls you’re the prettiest garage-hand I’ve ever seen. Now don’t you worry. Get some sleep. I’ll keep an eye on you.’

I threw my arms round his neck and kissed him back – hard, on the lips. I said, ‘You’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met in my life. Thank you for being here. And please, James. Be careful! You haven’t seen them like I have. They’re really tough. Please don’t get hurt.’

He kissed me back, but only lightly, and I let go of him. He said, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve seen this sort before. Now you do all I told you and get off to sleep. ’Night, Viv.’

And then he had gone.

I stood for a moment looking at the closed door, and then I went and brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. I looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like hell – washed out, no make-up, and deep circles under my eyes. What a day! And now this! I mustn’t lose him! I mustn’t let him go! But I knew in my heart that I had to. He would go on alone and I would have to, too. No woman had ever held this man. None ever would. He was a solitary, a man who walked alone and kept his heart to himself. He would hate involvement. I sighed. All right. I would play it that way. I would let him go. I wouldn’t cry when he did. Not even afterwards. Wasn’t I the girl who had decided to operate without a heart?

Silly idiot! Silly, infatuated goose! This was a fine time to maunder like a girl in a woman’s magazine! I shook my head angrily and went into the bedroom and got on with what I had to do.

It was still blowing hard and the pine trees clashed fiercely outside my back window. The moon, filtering through high scudding clouds, lit up the two high squares of glass at each end of the room and shone eerily through the thin, red-patterned curtains. When the moon went behind the clouds, the blocks of blood-red photographer’s light went dark and there was only the meagre pool of yellow from the oil-lamp. Without the brightness of electricity, there was a nasty little movie-set feeling about the oblong room. The corners were dark and the room seemed to be waiting for a director to call people out of the shadows and tell them what to do.

I tried not to be nervous. I put my ears to the connecting walls to right and left, but across the space of the car-ports I could hear nothing. Before I had set up my barricade I had softly opened the door and gone out and looked round. There had been a glimmer of light from Numbers 8 and 10 and from James Bond’s Number 40 away down to the left. Everything had been peaceful, everything quiet. Now I stood in the middle of the room and had a last look round. I had done everything he had told me to do. I remembered the prayers I was going to say and I knelt down there and then on the carpet and said them. I thanked, but I also asked. Then I took two aspirin, turned down the light and blew across the glass chimney to put it out, and went over to my floor bed in the corner. After unzipping the front of my overalls and unlacing but not removing my shoes, I curled myself up in the blankets.

I never take aspirins or any other pills. These, after carefully reading the instructions, I had taken from the little first-aid kit my practical mind had told me to include in my scrap of luggage. I was anyway exhausted, beat to the wide, and the pills, to me as strong as morphia, soon sent me off into a delicious half-sleep in which there was no danger but only the dark, exciting face and the new-found knowledge that there really did exist such men. Soppier even than that, I remembered the first touch of his hand holding the lighter and thought carefully about each kiss separately, and then, but only after vaguely remembering the gun and slipping my hand under the pillow to make sure it was there, I went happily to sleep.

The next thing I knew I was wide awake. I lay for a moment remembering where I was. There was a lull in the wind and it was very quiet. I found I was lying on my back. That was what had awakened me! I lay for a moment looking across the room at the square of red high up on the opposite wall. The moon was out again. How deathly quiet it was! The silence was warm and embracing after the hours of storm. I began to feel drowsy and I turned over on my side so that I lay facing into the room. I closed my eyes. But, as sleep held out her hands to me again, something nagged at my mind. My eyes, before I had closed them, had noticed something unusual in the room. Unwillingly, I opened them again. It took minutes to recognize again what I had seen. The faintest chinks of light were shining from between the door frames of the clothes cupboard up against the opposite wall.

How stupid! I hadn’t closed the doors properly and the automatic ‘courtesy’ light inside hadn’t switched itself off. Reluctantly I got out of bed. What a bore! And then, after I had taken only two steps across the room, I suddenly remembered. But there wouldn’t be a light inside the cupboard! The electricity was switched off!

I stood for a moment, my hand up to my mouth, and then, as I turned to dive for the gun, the doors of the cupboard burst open and the crouching figure of Sluggsy darted out and, a flashlight in one hand and something swinging from the other, he was on top of me.

I think I gave a shrill scream, but perhaps it was only within me. The next moment something exploded against the side of my head and I felt myself crash to the floor. Then all was darkness.

My first sensations on coming round were of terrific heat and of being dragged along the ground. Then I smelled the burning and saw the flames and I tried to scream. I realized that nothing was coming out of my mouth but an animal whimpering, and I began to kick with my feet. But the hands held my ankles firmly and then suddenly, with painful bumps that added to the frightful pain in my head, I found myself being dragged into wet grass and tree branches. Suddenly my feet were laid down and there was a man on his knees beside me and his firm hand over my mouth. A voice close to my ear, James Bond’s voice, whispered urgently, ‘Don’t make a sound! Lie still! It’s all right. It’s me.’

I put a hand out to him and felt his shoulder. It was naked. I pressed it to reassure him and the hand came away from my mouth. He whispered, ‘Wait there! Don’t move! Be back in a second,’ and he slipped noiselessly away.

Noiselessly? It wouldn’t have mattered how much noise he made. There was a tremendous roar and crackle of flames behind me and orange light flickered against the trees. I got carefully to my knees and painfully turned my head. A great wall of flame extended down to my right all along the row of cabins. God, what he had saved me from! I felt my body and put my hands up to my hair. I was untouched. There was only the throbbing bruise at the back of my head. I found I could stand, and I got up and tried to think what had happened. But I could remember nothing after I had got hit. So they must have set fire to the place and James had somehow got to me in time and pulled me out into the trees at the back!

There was a rustle among the trees and he was beside me. He was wearing no shirt or coat, but there was some kind of harness across the sunburned, sweating chest that glistened in the light of the flames, and a heavy-looking automatic hung, butt down, below his left armpit. His eyes were bright with tension and excitement and his smoke-streaked face and tousled hair made him look piratical and rather frightening.

He smiled grimly. He nodded in the direction of the flames. ‘That’s the game. Burn the place down for the insurance. They’re just fixing the flames to reach the lobby building, sprinkling thermite dust along the covered way. I couldn’t care less. If I took them on now, I’d only be saving Mr Sanguinetti’s property for him. With us as witnesses, he won’t even smell the insurance. And he’ll be in jail. So we’ll just wait a bit and let him have a total loss on his books.’

I suddenly thought of my precious belongings. I said humbly, ‘Can we save the Vespa?’

‘It’s all right. You’ve only lost those glad-rags – if you left them in the bathroom. I got the gun when I got you, and I slung the saddle-bags out. I’ve just been salvaging the Vespa. It looks in good shape. I’ve made a cache of everything in the trees. Those car-ports will be the last things to go. They’ve got masonry on both sides. They’ve used thermite bombs in each of the cabins. Better than petrol. Less bulky and they leave no traces for the insurance sleuths.’

‘But you might have got burned!’

His smile flashed white in the shadows. ‘That’s why I took my coat off. I must look respectable in Washington.’

It didn’t seem funny to me. ‘But what about your shirt?’

There was a crash and a great shower of sparks way down the line of cabins. James Bond said, ‘There goes my shirt. Roof falling in on top of it.’ He paused and wiped his hand down his dirty sweating face so that the black smudged even worse. ‘I had a feeling something like this was going to happen. Perhaps I should have been more ready for it than I was. I could have gone and changed the wheel on my car, for instance. If I’d done that we could get out now. We could work our way round the end of the cabins and make a dash for it. Get to Lake George or Glens Falls and send the cops along. But I thought that if I fixed the car our friends would have an excuse to tell me to get moving. I could have refused, of course, or said that I wouldn’t go without you, but I thought that might lead to shooting. I’d be lucky to beat those two unless I shot first. And with me out of the picture, you’d have been back where we started. That would have been bad. You were a major part of their plan.’