Goldeneye by Ian Fleming

Author:Ian Fleming [Fleming, Ian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Espionage
ISBN: 9780753151907
Google: FVvlAAAACAAJ
Amazon: 1572970340
Publisher: Berkley
Published: 1995-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

11

THE GOD WITH TWO FACES

‘Alec?’ Bond could not believe it at first. He went cold and wanted to vomit, yet his stunned disbelief was gradually turning to anger. He did not need to even ask the question, for he had known Alec Trevelyan as friend and colleague all his active life.

‘Yes.’ The familiar voice was only slightly slurred by the defect on the left of his mouth. ‘Yes, James, I’m back from the dead. I’m not just one of those anonymous crosses on the memorial wall at the SIS headquarters. Does that wall still exist in the new building?’ He stopped as though waiting for a response. ‘What’s the matter James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback? You used to be famous for your one-liners.’

‘I’ve got a one-worder for you, Alec.’

‘Novel, go ahead.’

‘Why?’

‘Why? Very droll, James. Why? Because I speak the language well. That do you?’

‘No, I think I deserve a decent answer.’

‘OK, how about going out, risking life and limb; bombing around the world, putting your life on the line, then finally ending up on the scrap heap?’

‘Happens to everybody, Alec. We’re no different from soldiers, civil servants. Name any trade and you come to the same answer.’

‘So you think it’s OK just to win a war, come home and hear the words, “Well done, chaps. You did a good job, but times’ve changed. Goodbye.” You think that’s fair?’

‘Nobody has ever said life is fair.’

‘Quite. That’s it. I went missing because I saw there was no future as a worker ant. I went freelance.’

‘You went freelance? Even though you’d taken a pledge . . .’ one hundred kilometres.’bground,

‘To what? Queen and Country?’

‘It was the job we promised to do.’

‘Well done, James. Yes, we had made promises, but the world’s changed. I happened to move on more or less just in time.’

‘The world always changes. That’s part of life and part of the job.’

Alec laughed, bitter, with a trace of Biblical wormwood and gall. ‘Part of the job? Risk everything, and end up with nothing?’

‘Depends on what you mean by nothing, Alec. The world’s in constant change. Wars come and go. At the moment it looks as though our old main enemy has gone, but it’s left chaos behind. In my job – which used to be your job as well – there’s more to do now than at any time. Parts of the old Russian empire are crumbling; there are new terrors, and where there are new terrors, we are most needed.’

‘Not in my book, James. I’m happy being a freelance, thank you very much.’

‘You’d rather cause the chaos than try to stop it?’ Bond raised his hand and the pistol came up with it.

‘Oh, James, put that peashooter away. Do you really think that I haven’t anticipated your every move?’ He turned and began to walk away.

The man, Bond considered, had gone too far to be brought back. The explosion? Ourumov’s bullet? Whatever had happened after the operation in the eighties? ‘I trusted you,’ he said aloud.

‘James, don’t be so bloody melodramatic.

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