John Gardner: Licence Renewed

The week-end had been planned for some time, and, as the builders and decorators had just moved out, this was to have been his first free week-end at the cottage. Furthermore, he had planned to spend it with a girl friend of long standing — an agile, superbly nubile blonde he had known — as Bill Tanner, M's Chief-of-Staff put it — 'on and off for years'. The fact that she lived only six miles or so from the cottage had greatly influenced Bond's purchase. On that Friday, he had completed a mound of paperwork in record time, not even leaving the office for lunch, so that he could get out of the hot chaos of London traffic in good time, before the normal Friday evening snarl-up began.

The countryside was at its best; the mixed fragrance of a perfect summer filtering into the car, bringing with it a sense of well-being and contentment — something rare for Bond these days.

James Bond was not a superstitious man, but, as he neared the cottage that evening, he had noticed there seemed to be more magpies than usual. They flew low, rolling and fluttering across the roads and lanes like black and white dice in a game of craps. Bond thought of the old adage, 'One for sorrow, two for joy'. There were a lot of single magpies swooping near the car.

On reaching the cottage, Bond put a bottle of Dom Perignon '55 on ice, knowing that it would either be magnificent or the most expensive wine vinegar he had ever tasted.

He then went into the downstairs spare room, discarded the somewhat conservative business suit, and showered, first under a scalding spray, then with ice cold water, which seemed to cut into him like needles. After drying himself with a rough towel, Bond rubbed a small amount of Guerlain's Imperial Cologne into his skin before putting on a pair of lightweight worsted navy slacks, and a white Sea Island cotton shirt. He slipped into comfortable soft leather sandals and was just clipping the old and valued gold Rolex Oyster Perpetual on to his wrist when the telephone rang.

It was more of a purr than a ring. The red 'phone. His heart sank. Both here, at the cottage, and in his London flat off the King's Road, James Bond was required to have two telephones: one for normal use, though unlisted; and a second, red instrument — a flat, angled piece of equipment, without dial or number punches. Called, in his trade, a 'wiretap trap', this secure, sterile, unbuggable 'phone was linked directly to the building overlooking Regent's Park, known as the headquarters of Transworld Export Ltd.

Before he had even put a hand to the 'phone, Bond experienced his first flash of mild annoyance. The only reason for a call from headquarters on a Friday evening could be some kind of emergency: or a state of readiness created by M for Bond's benefit. Bond's annoyance was, possibly, heightened by the fact that, of late, many emergencies had meant sitting in a control or communications room for days at a time; or going through a complex briefing which ended with orders to abort the planned mission. Times had changed, and Bond did not like some of the political restraints placed on the Secret Service, for which he had worked with fidelity for longer than he cared to remember.

He picked up the red 'phone.

'James?' As Bond expected, it was Bill Tanner's voice on the line. Bond grunted a surly affirmative. 'M wants you here,' Tanner said, in a voice flat as a billiards table.

'Now?'

'His actual words are not for the telephone, but he indicated that sooner than now would be more acceptable.'

'On a Friday evening?' Bond mused, the irritation building quickly inside his head as he saw an idyllic week-end filtering away, like an excellent bottle of wine being poured down the drain.

'Now,' repeated the Chief-of-Staff, closing the line.

As he reached the Guildford by-pass, Bond remembered the sound of disappointment in his girl friend's voice when he had telephoned to say the week-end was off. He supposed that should be some consolation — not that there was much to console Bond these days. There had even been times, recently, when he had seriously considered resigning — to use the jargon, 'go private'. Argot changes. At one time the phrase would have meant defection; but not any more.

'Changing world; changing times, James,' M had said to him a couple of years ago, when breaking the news that the elite Double-O status — which meant being licensed to kill in the line of duty — was being abolished. 'Fools of politicians have no idea of our requirements. Have us punching time clocks before long.'

This was during the so-called Realignment Purge, often referred to in the Service as the SNAFU Slaughter, similar to the C.I.A.'s famous Hallowe'en Massacre, in which large numbers of faithful members of the American service had been dismissed, literally overnight. Similar things had happened in Britain, with financial horns being pulled in, and what a pompous Whitehall directive called 'a more realistic logic being enforced upon the Secret and Security Services'.

'Trying to draw our fangs, James,' M had continued on that depressing day. Then, with one of those rare smiles which seemed to light up the deep grey eyes, M grunted that Whitehall had taken on the wrong man while he was still in charge. 'As far as I'm concerned, 007, you will remain 007. I shall take full responsibility for you; and you will, as ever, accept orders and assignments only from me. There are moments when this country needs a troubleshooter — a blunt instrument — and by heaven it's going to have one. They can issue their pieces of bumf and abolish the Double-O section. We can simply change its name. It will now be the Special Section, and you are it. Understand, 007?'

'Of course, sir.' Bond remembered smiling. In spite of M's brusque and often uncompromising attitude, Bond loved him as a father. To 007, M was the Service, and the Service was Bond's life. After all, what M suggested was exactly what the Russians had done with his old enemies SMERSH — Smyert Shpionam, Death to Spies. They still existed, the dark core at the heart of the K.G.B., having gone through a whole gamut of metamorphoses, becoming the O.K.R., then the Thirteenth Department of Line F, and now, Department Viktor. Yet their work and basic organisation remained the same-political murder; kidnap; sabotage; assassination; the quick disposal of enemy agents, either after interrogation or as acts of war on the secret battlefield.

Bond had left M's office on that occasion in an elated mood. Yet, in the few years that had passed since, he had performed only four missions in which his Double-O prefix had played any part. A portion of his work was to kill people. It was not a facet of life he enjoyed, but he did it very well in the course of duty. There was certainly no pathological hankering after that kind of work. It was the active life that Bond missed; the continual challenge of a new problem, a difficult decision in the field, the sense of purpose and of serving his country. Sometimes he wondered if he was falling under the spell of that malaise which seemed, on occasions, to grip Britain by the throat — political and economic lethargy, combined with a short-term view of the world's problems.

Bond's four most recent missions had been quick, cut and dried, undercover operations; and, while it would be wrong to say that James Bond yearned for the danger, his life now seemed, at times, to lack real purpose.

He still kept in the peak of condition: each morning going through a rigorous workout of press-ups, leg-raising, arm and breathing exercises. There was a 'refresher' on combat and silent kills once a month, at the firm's training establishment; the weekly small arms shoot in the sophisticated electronic range far below the Regent's Park headquarters; and the monthly all-weapons shoot at the Maidstone Police Range. Twice a year he disappeared for a fortnight to the SAS headquarters in Herefordshire.