Page 121 - Brokenclaw - John Gardner

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highly strung as I will be if I don’t get some rest. I’m going to take a shower

and go straight to bed, darling, or I’ll be no good for anything in the morning.’
Bond nodded. ‘I’ll go and take a quick brandy, then join you.’
‘There’s to be no joining tonight, my dear!’ Chi-Chi gave him a coquettish
James Bond OO7 - printing disabled spoke volumes. ‘And isn’t James Bond OO7 - printing disabledwonder Beijing James Bond OO7 - printing disabled
look that
James Bond OO7 - printing disabledMr Lee a nice man? No
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Hsia thinks so well of him,’ she played to the hidden microphones, and went on
undressing as though it were the most natural thing in the world. Bond’s note
had warned her of possible son et lumiere. Brokenclaw Lee, he thought, was
the kind of man who would have a room wired not only as a safety precaution,

but also to amuse the voyeuristic traits in his own make-up.
‘Magnificent man,’ he answered, sweeping the bedroom with his eyes, trying
to figure where the cameras were hidden. Then he went into the main room,
poured himself a liberal glass of brandy and sat down in one of the
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comfortable leather armchairs. Bond was a man who detested all the phoney
mumbo-jumbo that sometimes goes on when you order brandy in restaurants.
The business of warming vast glasses had nothing to do with the taste of good
brandy.

He allowed the liquid to stay in his mouth for a second before swallowing
the first sip. It always did him good, focused the mind. At this moment all he
could think of was Dr Johnson’s famous remark, ‘Claret is the liquor for boys;
port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy’. Well, Bond

did not aspire to be a hero, it was just something that came with the job.
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He took ten minutes over the drink, his eyes lazily inspecting the main room
for signs of hidden cameras, not that it would be much use nowadays with the
advent of fibre-optics, but his main concern was keeping the ASP 9mm hidden

when he undressed.
Back in the bedroom, Chi-Chi seemed to have dealt with her shower in
record time, for she appeared to be fast asleep, bundled cosily in the bed, all
the lights off except for a dimmed reading lamp on the side left unoccupied.

He tiptoed through to the bathroom, removing his jacket and at the same time
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extracting the automatic. Covering it with the clothing, he placed it carefully on
one of the pair of bathroom chairs. Swiftly he stripped, showered, dried
himself and put on the towelling robe that hung ready for him. A chute was set

into the wall with a notice telling guests to put any washing into it. The clean
laundry would be returned within an hour. He also caught sight of a piece of
torn paper lying by one of the soap dishes. The paper had a swiftly scrawled

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