Page 18 - Brokenclaw - John Gardner

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It’s as though you’ve put me out to grass.’

M made a little tilting motion with his right hand. ‘When the time’s right,
007, there’ll be plenty of work for you.’
‘Like sending me to a health farm? You did that once and look what
happened.’
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‘No, health farms are out.’ M’s mouth clamped shut, his lips forming a
straight grim line. ‘Listen to me, 007, and listen well. Europe – the world come
to that – is at a crossroads. What with the wind of change blowing among the
Eastern Bloc countries, and perestroika running amok in the Soviet Union, we

need cool heads. Never,’ he began to enunciate his words, clipping them off
one at a time, ‘never since the early days of the cold war have we been so in
need of human intelligence – HUMINT. The map of Europe is being changed.
For good? Maybe. Who knows? Those countries are unstable. The Soviet
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Union is unstable. We’re recruiting, establishing old networks so that, should
the problems return, we shall be ready.
‘In this situation, I cannot have men about me whose minds have lost their
edge, just as your mind’s lost its edge, James. I’ve kept you on the active Naval

list just in case. And I want you sharp as a dagger, smart as a whip.’ It was then
that M added the lines Bond was to remember in his hotel room in Victoria,
British Columbia. ‘You need to get away for a rest, James. Go off to
California. They’re all mad there, so you’ll be in good company.’ He had said

it without a smile or trace of levity.
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It was dark by the time he got to the Fairmont Hotel, high on Nob Hill. He had
just made a Horizon Air flight out of Victoria, clearing customs and
immigration at Port Angelis and going on to Seattle where he connected with

an Alaska Airways flight to San Francisco. It was dusk as they let down
towards SFO International and the mist had already rolled in across the Bay,
so that the Golden Gate bridge looked like a half-submerged gigantic liner with
her twin superstructures visible above the murk.
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During the limo drive to the Fairmont, Bond took in the lights and
atmosphere distinctive to the colourful city of Saint Francis – by day a
bustling, thriving tourist-ridden place, and by night a city full of life and
activity, some of it dangerous. He had not been here for several years, though

he had fond memories of staying at the Mark Hopkins just across the street
from the Fairmont, and of a day out in Muir Woods among the aged huge

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