فصل 01

CHAPTER ONE

An Interview with M

One morning, James Bond was called to the office of his boss, M, head of the British Secret Service. Miss Moneypenny, M’s private secretary, gave Bond a warm smile when he arrived.

‘007 is here now, Sir,’ she said into the intercom on her desk.

‘Send him in,’ came the reply.

Bond knocked and walked into M’s office. M was sitting behind a large leather-topped desk. A reading light made a pool of light across the desk. The rest of the room was darkened by the London fog outside the windows.

‘Good morning, 007,’ said M. ‘Sit down.’

Bond sat in the chair which faced M across the desk.

‘Have you ever seen one of these?’ M took a gold coin from his pocket and pushed it halfway across the desk towards Bond.

Bond picked it up and turned it over in his hand. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But it’s worth about five hundred pounds, perhaps

‘Fifteen hundred,’ said M. ‘It’s an English coin, of course. A Rose Noble of Edward the Fourth.’ He took more gold coins from his pocket and dropped them on the desk in front of Bond - Spanish, French and Dutch coins. ‘They’re worth a lot of money just as gold, but much more to people who collect coins. If you take a look, you’ll notice that they were all made before 1650. Bloody Morgan, the pirate, was Governor and Commander in Chief of Jamaica from 1675 to 1688. These coins are almost certainly part of Morgan’s treasure.

‘Nearly a thousand of them have come into the United States in the last few months. And they continue to come in, finding their way to banks and coin collectors’ shops. But the FBI has a problem. If they admit that they know about the coins, the coins will stop coming into the country. They’ll be melted down into gold bars’ and will be lost. They don’t want that to happen.

‘At the moment, someone is using a network of people - people who are working as porters, sleeping car attendants on trains or truck drivers - to spread the coins all across the United States. Quite innocent people, like Zachary Smith…’

M opened a thick file which had TOP SECRET written on it and took out a single piece of paper. He began to read: ‘Zachary Smith. Works as train attendant. Address 90b West 126th Street, in Harlem, New York City. On 21st November, he sold four sixteenth- and seventeenth-century gold coins to Fein Jewels in Lennox Avenue for one hundred dollars. When interviewed later, Smith said they had been sold to him in a Harlem bar for twenty dollars each. The seller was a black man he had never seen before. He told Smith that the coins were each worth fifty dollars. But Smith wanted cash immediately, so he was happy to sell them to Fein Jewels for twenty-five dollars each.’

M put the paper back into the file. ‘All the sales have been in Harlem or Florida.’

‘And you think they’re part of Bloody Morgan’s treasure,’ said Bond.

‘That’s almost certain, because of the dates on the coins,’ agreed M. ‘But Bloody Morgan’s treasure is not in America, it’s in Jamaica. A boat, the Secatur, has been regularly sailing from a small island on the north coast of Jamaica, through the Florida Keys and into the Gulf of Mexico. This yacht sails to St Petersburg, near Tampa, on the west coast of Florida. The FBI has discovered that the boat and the island belong to a man called “Mr Big”. He’s a black gangster who lives in Harlem. Have you heard about him?’

‘No,’ said Bond.

‘We suspect that this Jamaican treasure is being used to get money for Russian spies in America,’ said M quietly. ‘Why? We think Mr Big is a Russian agent and a member of SMERSH.’ M pointed to the file in front of him. ‘You’ll find out more in here.’

‘I’d like to meet him,’ said Bond. ‘I’d like to meet any member of SMERSH.’

M handed him the thick file. ‘It’s a joint CIA and FBI job. Be ready to start in a week.’