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pay lip-service and provide morsels for them call 'the Season'. He was not
naturally drawn to Wimbledon, the Henley Regatta, or, indeed, to Royal Ascot.
The fact that Bond was a staunch monarchist did not prevent the grave
misgivings he felt when turning the Saab in the direction of Ascot on Gold Cup
day.
Life had been very full since the Friday evening of the previous week, when M
had taken the decision to place Bond within the heart of the Laird of
Murcaldy's world.
Inside the building overlooking Regent's Park, people did not ask questions
when a sudden personal disappearance, or a flurry of activity, altered the
pattern of days. Though Bond was occasionally spotted, hurrying to or from
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meetings, he did not go near his office.
In fact, Bond worked a full seventeen-hour day during this time of
preparation. To begin with, there were long briefings with M, in his big
office, recently redecorated and now dominated by Cooper's painting of Admiral
Jervis's fleet triumphing over the Spanish off Cape St Vincent in 1797-the
picture having been lent to the Service by the National Maritime Museum.
During the following weeks, Bond was to recall the battle scene, with its
background of lowering skies and the British men-o'-war, trailing ensigns and
streamers, ploughing through choppy seas, tinted with the glow of fire and
smoke of action.
It was under this painting that M quietly took Bond through all the logical
possibilities of the situation ahead; revealed the extent to which Anton Murik
had recently invested in businesses all connected, one way or another, with
nuclear energy; together with his worst private fears about possible plots now
being hatched by the Laird of Murcaldy.
'The devil of it is, James,' M told him one evening, 'this fellow Murik has a
finger in a dozen market places-in Europe, the Middle East, and even America.'
As yet, M had not alerted the C.I.A., but was resigned to the fact that this
would be necessary if Bond found himself forced by the job he hoped to
secure with Anton Murik- to operate within the jealously guarded spheres of
American influence.
Primarily, the idea was to put Bond into the Murik menage as a walking
listening device. It was natural, then, for him to spend much time with Q
Branch, the experts of 'gee-whizz' technology. In the past, he had often found
himself bored by the earnest young men who inhabited the workshops and testing
areas of Q Branch; but times were changing. Within the last year, everyone at
headquarters had been brightened and delighted by the appearance of a new face
among the senior executives of Q Branch: a tall, elegant, leggy young woman
with sleek and shining strawcoloured hair which she wore in an immaculate, if
severe, French pleat. This, together with her large spectacles, gave her a
commanding manner and a paradoxical personality combining warm nubility with
cool efficiency.
Within a week of her arrival, Q Branch had accorded its new executive the
nickname of Q'ute, for even in so short a time she had become the target of
many seductive attempts by unmarried officers of all ages. Bond had noticed
her, and heard the reports. Word was that the colder side of Q'ute's
personality was uppermost in her off-duty hours. Now 007 found himself working
close to the girl, for she had been detailed to arrange the equipment he would
take into the field, and brief him on its uses.
Throughout this period, James Bond remained professionally distant. Q'ute was
a desirable girl, but, like so many of the ladies working within the security
services these days, she remained friendly yet at pains to make it plain that
she was her own woman and therefore Bond's equal. Only later was 007 to learn
that she had done a year in the field before taking the two-year technical
course which provided her with promotion to executive status in Q Branch.
At forty-eight hours' notice, Q'ute's team had put together a set of what she
called 'personalised matching luggage'. This consisted of a leather suitcase
together with a similarly designed, steel-strengthened briefcase. Both items
contained cunningly devised compartments, secret and well-nigh undetectable,
built to house a whole range of electronic sound-stealing equipment; some
sabotage gear, and a few useful survival items. These included a highly
sophisticated bugging and listening device; a VL 22H counter-surveillance [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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