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May work, may not. It means giving the Vitali girl a rough time, but I'll try
and handle that side. Drop me at the hotel and I'll get cracking. Meet you
here again around four-thirty. I'll call up Harling and see if he's got
anything new on the Disco and ask him to pass the word upstairs to you if
anything's cooking. You've got all that straight about the plane? Okay. I'll
hang on to Petacchi's identification disk for the time being. Be seeing you.
Bond almost ran through the lobby of the hotel. When he picked up his key at
the reception desk they gave him a telephone message. He read it going up in
the lift. It was from Domino:  Please telephone quickly.
In his room, Bond first ordered a club sandwich and a double bourbon on the
rocks and then called the
Police Commissioner. The Disco had moved to the oiling wharf at first light
and had filled her tanks. Then she had moved back to her anchorage offPalmyra
. Half an hour ago, at one-thirty precisely, the seaplane had been lowered
over the side and, withLargo and one other on board, had taken off eastward.
When the Commissioner had heard this on the walkie-talkie from his watchers he
had got on to the control tower at Windsor Field and had asked for the plane
to be radar-tracked. But she had flown low, at about three hundred feet, and
they had lost her among the islands about fifty miles to the southeast.
Nothing else had come up except that the harbor authorities had been alerted
to expect an American submarine, the Manta , the nuclear-powered one, at
around five in the evening. That was all. What did
Bond know? Bond said carefully that it was too early to tell. It looked as if
the operation was hotting up.
Could the watchers be asked to rush the news back as soon as the seaplane was
sighted coming back to the Disco ? This was vital. Would the Commissioner
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please pass on his news to Felix Leiter, who was on his way to the radio room
at that moment? And could Bond be lent a car---anything---to drive himself?
Yes, a Land Rover would be fine. Anything with four wheels.
Then Bond got on to Domino out atPalmyra . She sounded eager for his voice.
 Where have you been
all morning, James? It was the first time she had used his Christian name.  I
want you to come swimming this afternoon. I have been told to pack and come on
board this evening. Emilio says they are going after the treasure tonight.
Isn't it nice of him to take me? But it's a dead secret, so don't tell anyone,
will you.
But he is vague about when we will be back. He said something aboutMiami . I
thought ---she hesitated---  I thought you might have gone back toNew York by
the time we get back. I have seen so little of you. You left so suddenly last
night. What was it?
 I suddenly got a headache. Touch of the sun, I suppose. It had been quite a
day. I didn't want to go.
And I'd love to come for a swim. Where?
She gave him careful directions. It was a beach a mile farther along the coast
fromPalmyra . There was a side road and a thatched hut. He couldn't miss it.
The beach was sort of better thanPalmyra 's. The skin-diving was more fun. And
of course there weren't so many people. It belonged to some Swedish
millionaire who had gone away. When could he get there? Half an hour would be
all right. They would have more time. On the reef, that is.
Bond's drink came and the sandwich. He sat and consumed them, looking at the
wall, feeling excited about the girl, but knowing what he was going to do to
her life that afternoon. It was going to be a bad business---when it could
have been so good. He remembered her as he had first seen her, the ridiculous
straw hat tilted down over the nose, the pale blue ribbons flying as she sped
upBay Street . Oh, well ...
Bond rolled his swimming trunks into a towel, put on a dark blue sea-island
cotton shirt over his slacks, and slung Leiter's Geiger counter over his
shoulder. He glanced at himself in the mirror. He looked like any other
tourist with a camera. He felt in his trousers pocket to make sure he had the
identification bracelet and went out of the room and down in the lift.
The Land Rover had Dunlopillo cushions, but the ripple-edged tarmac and the
pitted bends ofNassau 's coastal road were tough on the springs and the
quivering afternoon sun was a killer. By the time Bond found the sandy track
leading off into the casuarinas and had parked the car on the edge of the
beach, all he wanted to do was get into the sea and stay in it. The beach hut
was a Robinson Crusoe affair of plaited bamboo and screwpine with a palm
thatch whose wide eaves threw black shadows. Inside were two changing rooms
labeled HIS and HERS. HERS contained a small pile of soft clothes and the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]