Foreign Service, a James Bond Story

A few years ago the copyright on Ian Fleming's James Bond ran out in Canada and a publisher here announced an anthology of short stories featuring Bond. I wrote one but it wasn't included (weird, I know).

So, I figured I'd post it here.

My story takes place just after the Ian Fleming short story, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY, in which James Bond flies to Montreal, drives to Ottawa, meets a mountie, sneaks into the USA and kills a Nazi. It's quite a good story and you can read it here:

So, picking up from the last line of that story, here's FOREIGN SERVICE:

 Bond picked up the tail as he passed through Pike River on route 7 heading north towards Montreal. A 1953 Chev, looking old and tired but Bond could tell by the sound it made that the motor was finely tuned and powerful. The tail was good, dropping out of sight for long periods and never getting too close.

Behind the wheel of his rented Plymouth Bond turned to the girl in the passenger seat and said, “How’s the shoulder?”

The girl, Judy Havelock, touched the bandage and smiled. “I’d forgotten all about it.”

“It’s a nasty wound.”

“It was nasty business.”

“Yes,” Bond agreed. It had been a nasty business just across the American border in Vermont. He’d flown from London to Montreal on the new BOAC Comet and driven to Ottawa where he’d met with an RCMP officer who’d already been briefed on the assignment. The off-the-record, personal assignment. An ex-Nazi looking to get out of Cuba before Castro ran him out had murdered a man and woman who had refused to sell him their Jamaican estate. M had been the best man at their wedding and he’d given Bond a file marked, “For Your Eyes Only,” with some details and the RCMP had finished the briefing and fitted him out with a new Savage 99F, Weatherby 6 x 62, five-shot repeater with twenty rounds of high-velocity .250-3,000. Bond had used eight rounds to kill the three Cuban bodyguards.

In the mountains of Vermont Bond discovered Judy Havelock with a bow and arrow. She was quite good and very determined.

And she was the daughter of the couple killed in Jamaica. She killed the Nazi with a single arrow.

Bond said, “Hold on,” and swerved the car sharply, turning off the main road and then sharply again, coming to a stop between a two hundred year old stone church and a small graveyard.

“James, what are you doing?”

“Making a confession.” He motioned slightly to the side door of the church where a priest was just going in.

“What? Where are we?”

“Saint-Sébastien. Looks like a charming little town, I imagine they’ll have some very good charcuterie. Fancy a picnic?”

“Well, I am a little hungry.”

Bond got out the car and said, “Wait here.” He walked a few steps to the church and stood in the shade under large maple tree.

A minute later the Chev came slowly prowling down the street and stopped in front the Plymouth. A clean-cut young man got out and walked towards Judy.

Bond stepped up behind him and said, “Are you looking for me?”

The young man turned around quickly and saw the Walther PPK in Bond’s hand.

“Oh, no, sir, Commander, you’ve got it wrong,” the young man said. “I’m your escort.”

Bond didn’t lower the Walther. “You are?”

“Yes, sir, Colonel… Johns sent me. I escorted you to the border and picked you up on the way back.”

“Is that so?” Bond was impressed the young man managed to stay undiscovered on the first leg of the journey, but of course, following the route Johns had devised for Bond gave him an advantage.

“Colonel Johns was hoping that maybe he could have a word with you. When you get back to Montreal.”

“How’s tomorrow,” Bond said.

“Fine. Colonel Johns can call you at the Ko-Zee motel?”

“He may have to leave a message with Andre at desk,” Bond said.

“It’s less than an hour from here, sir.”

“I may take the scenic route.”

The young man nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“All right then, on your way.”

Bond watched the young man run back to his Chev, get in and head back to the main road.

Judy was leaning out the window then and she said, “Do you know where this scenic route is?”

Getting into the car Bond said, “I think I can find it.”

The next morning Bond put Judy on a plane to London once he’d gotten a firm promise from her to call her ‘uncle’ M and fill him in on everything that had happened in Vermont.

Judy said, “Should I tell him what happened in Montreal?”

“What happened in Montreal?”

“Oh, James.” Judy was still smiling as Bond drove off.

He headed west taking the same route he’d taken to Ottawa only a couple of days before but this time he turned off the highway only a few miles from the airport and pulled into the parking lot of the Royal Montreal Golf and Country Club.

The club house was a large, stone building built to look stodgily important and to withstand the long hard winters. There was a veranda around the front and healthy-looking, casually-dressed women sat drinking coffee and eating sandwiches.

Bond parked his rented Plymouth and walked to the pro shop where Colonel Johns was waiting, talking with an older man Bond took to be the resident professional.

Johns saw him and said, “Ah, Mr. James,” careful not to use a rank of any kind. “No trouble finding the place?”

“None at all,” Bond said. “Nice to have a destination with a street address.”

Johns smiled a little and said, “Of course.” Then he turned to the man he was standing beside and said, “Mr. James, this is Mr. Blake, the professional here at the Royal Montreal. He’ll be happy to get you fitted out for the round, any special requirements?”

“None at all.”

Blake held out his hand and said, “Gareth here can take you through to the locker room.”

Bond said, “Right then, I’ll see you on the first tee in a few minutes.”

It was a clear, crisp fall day and the course was in excellent condition. Colonel Johns was a solid, if cautious golfer, preferring to lay up on approaches when Bond would try for the green. More often than not, though, there was no bite and Bond’s Penfield Hearts would roll off to the fringe.

Johns never offered advice about his home course but he did enjoy telling Bond a little of the history of the place, how it had started out at a different location, on Fletcher’s Field on the side of Mount Royal and it was at that location in 1884 that permission was granted by Queen Victoria herself for use of the “Royal” prefix.

Bond found it almost quaint the way these colonists clung to the empire, possibly more so than the English did themselves these days but there was something a little noble in it and Bond was appropriately appreciative.

When they finished the round and shook hands on the eighteenth green, Bond squeaking out a two shot victory, Johns said, “Perhaps I could buy you dinner?” He motioned to the clubhouse and Bond said, “Alberta steaks?”

Johns smiled and said, “And New Brunswick lobster, if you like.”

Bond said, “Excellent.” He was wondering when Johns would get to the point of the meeting and expected he’d have to wait until after dinner when they were finally in front of the fireplace drinking port, but the Canadian surprised him after the Caesar salads, saying “I’m pleased that your trip has gone well.”

“So am I.”

“And I hope you’re enjoying your time in Canada.”

“Most pleasant,” Bond said.

The waiter arrived at the table with the steaks. Neither Johns nor Bond had requested lobster.

Johns said, “I have a somewhat delicate matter and I wonder if I could impose on you for some advice.”

“I would suggest a little less of that HP sauce,” Bond said.

“Oh, yes, thank you. Guess I was a little distracted.”

Bond took a bite of his steak and said, “This is most excellent.”

“They do a roast beef here on Sunday that’s also excellent, Yorkshire pudding, delicious gravy, really quite good.”

Bond smiled and hoped it wasn’t too patronizing.

“The thing is,” Johns said, “I have a very small matter that needs a quick looking into.”

“But none of your men are available?” Bond said.

Johns looked pleased and said, “Yes, that’s right, not available.”

“Has your commissioner contacted M?”

“To be completely frank,” Johns said. “In this matter I would prefer not to involve my commissioner. At this point.”

Bond continued to eat his New York cut, which was excellent, as he considered the request. The RCMP commissioner had been very helpful when M had contacted him with his off-the-record request and Colonel Johns and been very helpful, getting Bond the Weatherby, and as it turned out, an escort to the American border and back. But this was a surprise.

“This is a delicate matter.”

“I hope it’s nothing, of course,” Johns said. “It’s just, I was talking to our American cousins and something was mentioned and now you’re here so I thought maybe a quick look around would put it to bed and no official action need be taken.”

“So it’s an internal matter?”

Johns drank more of his red wine and said, “If it’s a matter at all. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Gouzenko affair?”

“Thirteen years ago,” Bond said, “as the war was ending, Igor Gouzenko, a cipher clerk with the Soviet embassy in Ottawa defected.”

“And brought a hundred and nine documents, as all the papers helpfully pointed out.”

“I suppose he’s a big reason we all have the jobs we have,” Bond said. “Gouzenko showed the world how active Stalin was in counter-intelligence.”

“And the Soviets no less so now.”

“I think I understand your situation,” Bond said. “Have you got a starting point?”

Relief swept over Johns and he actually smiled. “I do. A woman.”

“You don’t say.”

Bond had moved from the Ko-Zee motel on the south shore to a room in the Laurentian Hotel overlooking Dominion Square. In America Bond preferred to stay in motels but Montreal had an old world feel and although the Laurentian was nearly new and a modern design of flat steel and glass without balconies or windows that opened it was in the heart of the city.

And the Laurentian Hotel contained the Kiltie Pub, which James Bond entered after a room service dinner of a surprisingly good cassoulet. He sat down in one of the chairs made out of a barrel and got out his cigarettes.

The blonde woman already at the table said, “Excuse me, I am waiting for someone.”

“And who might you be waiting for, Olga?”

“I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“You’re not Olga Schmidt?”

She looked at Bond in his old black and white hound’s-tooth tweed suit and white shirt and thin black tie and said, “No, I’m sorry, I’m not..” Her accent was a mix of German and Russian.

Bond said, “You’re not still using Gerda Hessler, are you?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Who are you?”

“My name is Bond. James Bond.”

“Well, Mr. Bond, whoever you think I am, you’re mistaken.”

“Am I? Who are you, then?”

“You’re not a policeman,” she said, “why is it any of your business?”

“Why would the fact that your name is Gerta Munsinger be of interest to a policeman?”

She was looking around the bar, at the businessmen and their secretaries out for drinks before they went home to wives and roommates or before they did things they might regret.

The woman sitting across the table from James Bond said, “I’m going to have to call hotel security.”

“And tell them what? That you’re a prostitute and your client is running late?”

She leaned forward and whispered through gritted teeth, “You have no idea who you’re dealing with.”

Bond stood up and said, “No, I suppose I don’t.” He started to walk away and added, “Have a wonderful evening, Miss, whatever you’re calling yourself tonight.”

Outside on Peel Street Bond watched a streetcar pass, the steel wheels grinding on the track, and he stopped to light a cigarette. Then he crossed the streets and walked into Dominion Square. It was dark already in the early fall evening and the air was cool.

Bond stopped at the base of a statue and looked up past the six-foot concrete base to the greenish figure of a man, arms crossed, looking into the distance.

“It’s a reproduction of the one in Ayr, near his birthplace.”

Bond didn’t take his eyes off the statue. “What’s he looking at?”

“He’s looking to the west,” the young man said. “To the infinite expanse of western Canada that was opened up by the Scotsmen who financed the railways.”

“So he’s not looking into the hotel?”

The young man said, “No, sir.”

Bond turned now and said, “Still my escort, are you?”

“Colonel Johns said you wanted to see me.”

“Yes,” Bond said. “I’m going to go back across the street and into that bar and have a Canadian Whiskey. I would like you to come and tell me when Miss Munsinger leaves the hotel.”

“She hasn’t left yet?”

“I expect her client has paid for the full hour.”

The young mountie looked a little flushed and said, “Oh, yes, of course.”

“Go on,” Bond said, “get on your horse,” and he added, “so to speak.”

“Right sir.” The young man dodged a streetcar and ran to the hotel.

Bond looked back at Robbie Burns and said, “Keep an eye on him, will you?” Then he walked slowly past the Sun Life building, once so proudly the largest building in the British Empire, and went into the Rymark Tavern.

Johns had told Bond about Gerta Munsinger, about how she had come to Canada from East Germany three years previously after trying unsuccessfully to get into the United States. In that short time she’d already managed to acquire two members of the federal cabinet as clients. Colonel Johns had begun an investigation but after a few months it was called off by his superiors when no evidence could be found that Munsinger was anything more than a prostitute.

In the Rymark Bond had a Canadian whiskey and decided he liked Montreal in the fall. The days were getting shorter and there was no doubt the cold was coming but he city seemed determined not to give in to the winter. The bar was crowded and the mood was light.

Bond had told Johns he could give him a couple of days if he wasn’t called back to London right away and that shortened time frame was why he spooked Munsinger. He wanted to see where she jumped.

Almost exactly an hour and ten minutes after Bond had left the Laurentian Hotel his young escort walked into the Rymark and said, “She got into a taxi. My partner followed. She’s at another bar in another hotel.”

“She’s busy.”

“No sir, she’s with a woman.”

Bond didn’t want to tell the young man that stranger things can happen in the world so he just said, “Which hotel?”

“The Mount Royal sir. Just a few blocks. We can take my car.”

Fifteen minutes later Bond walked through the faux-Polynesian archway into the Kon Tiki restaurant and bar and found a seat at a table tucked away behind a faux-palm tree in corner by the faux-bamboo pillars.

He had a clear look at Gerda Munsinger in a booth against the far wall and it only took a moment to see that she wasn’t meeting a client – male or female. She was distressed. She was looking for help.

As for the woman Munsinger was seeking help from, Bond could only see the back of her head, her blonde hair falling to her shoulders and the hand in which she held her cigarette.

Before Bond finished his first Mai Tai Munsinger was settled down and looking a little at ease and a few minutes later she stood up and walked out of the Kon Tiki. No hug, not even a handshake.

A business relationship.

Bond watched the blonde order another drink and as the waiter made his to the bar Bond motioned to him.

“Yes sir?”

“I’ll pay for the lady’s drink.”

“Very good, sir.”

Bond got out his cigarettes and lighter and watched the waiter take a lowball glass to the blonde. She accepted the drink and then surprised by Bond by standing up and walking towards him.

She said, “Mr. Bond, you upset Gerda.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bond said. “But Gerda has a lot of people worried. Please, join me?”

The blonde sat down and said, “Thank you.”

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Bond said. “I don’t know your name.”

She put her drink down on the table and held out her hand. “Helen Dow.”

“You’re not an associate of Miss Munsinger?”

“Oh no,” Helen said, trying to appear shocked at the very suggestion but not doing a very good job of it. “We’re just old friends.” She sipped her drink and said, “And what is your interest in Miss Munsinger? You’re not a police officer, you’re not even a local.”

“My concern is of a professional nature,” Bond said. “And since you’re not a business associate I don’t see how it would concern you.”

Helen laughed a little and Bond began to feel that she was older than he’d first thought, more late than early thirties.

She said, “I hardly think you’re in the same business as Gerda.”

“Some of my associates may be coming to Canada,” Bond said, “and they may want to do some business with someone like Miss Munsinger.”

The smile faded from Helen’s face and she looked serious. She said, “So, you’re the advance man, what are your concerns?”

“The usual. Discretion, professionalism.” He drank some of his mai tai. “Experience.”

“Then I think you’ll find Miss Munsinger and her associates will be ideal for your associates.” She held up her glass in a toast and Bond did the same.

There were lies upon lies being told and accepted, which was Bond’s professional, after all, but he wondered what this Helen’s profession really was. Was the secret she was hiding simply that she was a madam? It was possible, of course. For the moment Bond decided to accept that and see if there was a reason to suspect more over the course of the evening.

They chatted for a while about Montreal, how the winter would be cold, of course, but here would be excellent skiing in the Laurentian mountains and the nightlife in Montreal would not be deterred.

“In fact,” Helen said, “I hear the young man singing at the El Morocco tonight is very good, a Mr. Tony Bennett.”

Bond said, “Perhaps some investigation is in order?” and looked closely at Helen’s reaction. He was sure he saw something.

The night club was on Closse Street, across from the Forum which was filled with fifteen thousand people at a professional wrestling match. Many of those fans came into the El Morocco when the match was finished and Helen squeezed up to Bond and said, “It’s too crowded.” She took his hand and led him outside and into a cab.

Helen’s apartment wasn’t far, a few blocks east and just north of Sherbrooke, a main street through downtown lined with big old houses that had been converted into office buildings with boutiques on the ground floor.

Bond had no doubt Helen would be discrete, professional and experienced. And he was right. But he didn’t get the sense that Helen had worked her way up in the profession. His knowledge and understanding of prostitutes was a little more than professional, it was with a Parisian prostitute that Bond had first been with a woman when he was a teenager. It hadn’t gone well. Over the years Bond’s work took him into many situations where he dealt with prostitutes and he had become much more sympathetic towards the women personally. In fact, he saw many similarities in their professions, more than just pretending to be someone you’re not and keeping secrets.

And that’s why he was even more suspicious of Helen. He knew, of course, that she was taking him to bed as a professional courtesy but he had a nagging suspicion that there was more to it than just looking for business for herself and her associates. He couldn’t help but think she was overselling it.

When Helen fell asleep Bond got out of bed and pulled on his trousers. The apartment was on the ground floor of a three-story red brick building, a row of apartment buildings lining Mountain Street and the base of Mount Royal. Bond went into the small bathroom and looked through Helen’s toiletries, finding the usual make-up and headache pills, hairspray and what the advertising business was now calling ‘feminine hygiene products,’ but no prescription medication. There was a small window in the bathroom, not big enough to for a person to fit through, and besides, it led to an enclosed shaft.

The kitchenette was clean and neat and the living room looked like a picture in a magazine. Like a picture in one of the magazines spread out on the end table by the couch. Bond picked up a magazine looking for the subscriber mail tag but didn’t see one. He felt the apartment was certainly lived in, but nothing in it was personal. He walked quietly back into the bedroom and saw Helen still sleeping. He went to the closet and looked through the clothes. There was more than one size of dresses in similar styles. He looked down at the shoes and boots and again, there were at least three different sizes but similar sizes.

It felt like a safe house. A place that might be used by any agent of MI6 who was in town. Another similarity between the two professions.

Turning to leave Bond’s foot caught on something on the floor of the closet. A metal loop like a handle on a steamer trunk. He bent down and moved the shoes and boots aside.

He held the latch and pulled it up, opening it like the hatch on a submarine.

“Well, well, what have we here?”

Bond climbed down the ladder. At the bottom was a narrow hallway. A long one. It went for about twenty feet and then made a turn. Bond walked slowly. There was light but it was dim. After the turn was a longer, straight section and then another turn.

And then another ladder.

The hatch at the top of the ladder was locked.

Bond counted his steps back through the tunnel, making a note of where the turns came and at what approximate angle. He climbed the ladder back into Helen’s apartment, got dressed silently and slipped out the front door.

Across Mountain Street Bond saw buildings belonging to McGill University. He remembered a man from naval intelligence who’d gone to McGill and told stories about a camp in Canada during the war, a place where espionage was practiced. No one believed the man that such things happened in Canada.

Bond walked down Mountain Street to Sherbrook and turned right. On Sherbrooke he passed the Museum of Fine Arts and then turned right onto the next street. The sun was just coming up and the city was still asleep. The streets were empty.

Halfway up the block, almost the same distance up as Helen’s apartment, Bond stopped in front of a black iron fence. Behind the fence was a fairly large, three-story sandstone building. On the gate was a gold plaque with the letters CCCP across the top.

And under those letters were the words: Consulate of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Bond said, “Oh Helen, how could you.”

He walked back to Sherbrooke Street and figured he was about a dozen blocks from the Laurentian Hotel. There was a little traffic but so early in the morning he didn’t see any taxis so Bond decided to walk. As he passed the Ritz Carleton Hotel he was thinking that he would wait a couple of hours and then call Colonel Johns in Ottawa and let him know that Gerda Munsinger was indeed a Soviet spy. Johns could certainly take it from there.

As he turned onto Peel Street Bond saw a green delivery truck from a bakery, POM – Pride of Montreal, stopped in the curb lane. Immediately he turned around and headed back towards Sherbrooke.

But there was a man walking towards him with a gun in his hand who said, “Get in the truck, Mr. Bond.”

“You should have put some bread in there,” Bond said. “Something to at least give it the smell of a bakery truck.”

“Get in.”

The back door of the truck was open and another man was standing beside it holding another gun.

Bond climbed into the truck and said, “A croissant would be nice.”

The door slammed and the truck drove off.

It was dark and empty. If the truck had ever been used for bakery deliveries it was a long time ago and it had been thoroughly cleaned. More likely, Bond figured, there were so many green POM trucks on the streets of Montreal this one could be driven around without ever drawing suspicion.

For a few miles Bond concentrated on the speed and turns of the truck so he could later determine the route, but after a few dozen stops and starts and even more turns he stopped keeping track. All he knew for sure was that they were no longer on the island of Montreal as they had driven over the metal grates that had been added to the old railroad Victoria Bridge for automobile traffic.

After that Bond sat down on the floor of the truck and worked on keeping himself from being thrown into the walls as they careened around corners and stopped too suddenly. He felt they’d been driving for about forty minutes when the truck slowed down to a crawl and he heard voices speaking Russian in the cab. Then the truck stopped, someone got out and a minute later the truck drove for another twenty or thirty feet and stopped.

Probably drove into a barn, Bond figured, and when the back door of the truck opened he realized he was wrong.

They were in a small airplane hangar.

Bond said, “Thoughtful of you, gentlemen, but I don’t mind flying commercial. I know I complained about the new Comet, but I don’t think your crop dusters here will make it across the Atlantic.”

One of the Russians had a gun in his hand and he said, “Get out.”

Bond climbed down from the bakery truck and looked around the hangar. There were two small planes, Cessna 172 Skyhawks, and a couple of other trucks, both with New York state license plates. Now Bond was thinking that they likely took the same route south that he had taken himself only days earlier. It made complete sense to him that the Soviets would use Montreal as a base of operations where they could easily slip across the border into the United States. He wondered how much of the operation would be news to Colonel Johns and the Mounties.

“Why did you follow us and steal this plane, Mr. Bond?”

As the Russian was speaking Bond saw his rented Plymouth drive into the hangar and he said, “Do the good people at Hertz know you’ve taken their car?”

The Russian motioned with his gun and Bond walked slowly towards one of the Cessnas. As he crossed the hangar he took a look at some very sophisticated electronic equipment along the far wall. It looked like the control room for a Sputnik launch.

At the end of the console Bond saw what looked like the control panel and rudders from one of the Cessnas. The man sitting at the controls turned and said something in Russian.

The man with the gun said something in reply and the only words Bond could make out were, “Gagarin,” which he figured was the man’s name, and something about getting back to work.

Then Bond was clubbed over the head and everything went black.

When he came to, Bond was in the Cessna.

Alone.

A quick look around and Bond figured the plane was at about twenty-five hundred feet and flying steady over thick forest.

The Skyhawk was a four-seater and Bond was in the back. The plane banked slightly and Bond saw the rudders moving on their own and the rectangular steering wheel turning.

He said, “Remote control,” out loud in the cockpit as he climbed over the seats to the front. He grabbed the wheel but couldn’t move it. “I hope you can fly blind, Gagarin,” Bond said.

Then he remembered that a Cessna would have emergency parachutes under the seats and he reached for one but came upon a solid metal box. He got down on his knees in front of the seat and tried to pry open the box but he couldn’t find a seam. The plane banked again and descended a couple of hundred feet and then leveled out.

Below was still nothing but forest and ahead in the distance Bond could see mountains, likely the green mountains of Vermont but as he had no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious they could also be the Laurentian Mountains in Quebec or even the Appalachians.

Whatever mountains they were, Bond expected the plan was to crash the plane into one of them.

He ran his hand along the stem of the steering wheel looking for the point the remote control motor took over but couldn’t find anything.

Then Bond heard a sound, an engine coming up behind and he turned to see plane approaching. He thought it might be one of the Viscounts that Colonel Johns said were used in the area by druggers and white-slavers but as it got closer Bond realized it was smaller than that and single-engine.

He took off a shoe and smashed the glass cover off one of the dials on the panel, Then he ripped away the needle and got the chrome backing, a piece about three inches in diameter.

As the small plane got closer Bond realized it was a Hawker Fury, almost the same as the Sea Fury he’d flown himself in the navy. He hoped it was another one of Colonel Johns’ patrol planes like the one that took the aerial surveillance photos of the ranch where von Hammerstein had been in Vermont.

Catching the sun, Bond used the piece chrome to flash out Morse code, a quick SOS until he received a wing tip from the Fury. Then Bond sent out a longer message, “Can you give me a lift?”

He opened the door of the Cessna and waved.

The Fury flew underneath, coming up as close to the Cessna as the young pilot dared and Bond jumped.

He landed on the body of the Fury just ahead of the cockpit and immediately began to slide off. He got one hand onto the edge of the cockpit just behind the windshield and held on. The Fury was already descending away from the Fury and when it leveled off Bond was able to climb into the second seat behind the pilot, a young man who turned to look back at Bond and said, “I’ve never picked up a hitchhiker at two thousand feet before.”

“I appreciate it,” Bond said. “I hope I won’t take you too far out of your way.”

“You don’t want to go back to that ranch in Vermont, do you?”

Bond said, “No, thank you.” So it was the same plane Johns had sent to do the reconnaissance.

As the Fury banked and began to turn back towards Montreal there was a small explosion in the distance and Bond saw the ball of fire that was the Cessna high up in the mountain.

A few months later, in February, Bond met with M to go over his final report of the business in America with Auric Goldfinger and when that business was concluded M said, “A shame about the business in Canada.”

Bond said, “Some lingering effects, sir?”

“Yes,” M said. “Of course, the Soviets had deeply infiltrated the Canadian research. We were able to salvage a little bit of the remote control technology, Q was quite excited, especially by the range of the connection.”

Bond said, “I see,” but wasn’t particularly interested in the details.

“The real shame, I suppose,” M said, “is the plane the Canadians were working on, the Arrow. The Soviets had completely infiltrated the operation.”

“That’s a shame, sir.”

“Yes, well, the whole thing’s to be scrapped now,” M said. “We’re bringing one of the prototypes over here, much of it looks promising.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure you are.” M began to move files around on his desk. “The RCMP commissioner asked me to thank you for your help, James.”

Bond was standing up then and he said, “My help, sir? Was I ever in Canada?”

“Not as far as I know,” M said. Then he looked up at Bond and said, “And I want to thank you for… well, for what happened in Vermont.”

“I’ve never been to Vermont, either,” Bond said.

“No, of course not.”

Bond lingered by the door, looking for something to say. M had been very conflicted by the vigilante justice, by sending Bond to Vermont to kill von Hammerstein and Bond knew the old man was still having trouble reconciling a personal vendetta – von Hammerstein had killed two of M’s closest friends after all – and the professional work but Bond had no such trouble.

“I’ll be escorting Judy Haverstock back to Jamaica,” Bond said. “She will be continuing to run her parents’ estate.”

“That’s good,” M said. Judy Haverstock’s parents, the victims of von Hammerstein. “You’ll make sure she has the proper local security?”

“I will, sir.”

“Well, then, off you go.”

Bond had the hint of a smile. “Yes sir.”

Then it was off to winter in Jamaica. It was possible it might take the entire month of February and maybe even March to find the proper local security for Judy Haverstock.

THE END