007 Complete Series - 21 James Bond Novels in One Volume. Ian Fleming
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of Leiter's, he supposed. He ate his breakfast with enjoyment. Between mouthfuls he looked out of the wide window and reflected on what he had just read.
It was only when he had swallowed his last mouthful of coffee and had lit his first cigarette of the day that he suddenly became aware of the tiny noise in the room behind him.
It was a soft, muffled ticking, unhurried, metallic. And it came from the direction of the sideboard.
'Tick-tock... tick-tock... tick-tock.'
Without a moment's hesitation, without caring that he looked a fool, he dived to the floor behind his armchair and crouched, all his senses focused on the noise from the square parcel. 'Steady,' he said to himself. 'Don't be an idiot. It's just a clock.' But why a clock? Why should he be given a clock? Who by?
'Tick-tock... tick-tock... tick-tock.'
It had become a huge noise against the silence of the room. It seemed to be keeping time with the thumping of Bond's heart. 'Don't be ridiculous. That Voodoo stuff of Leigh Fermor's has put your nerves on edge. Those drums...'
'Tick-tock... tick-tock... Tick--'
And then, suddenly, the alarm went off with a deep, melodious, urgent summons.
'Tongtongtongtongtongtong...'
Bond's muscles relaxed. His cigarette was burning a hole in the carpet. He picked it up and put it in his mouth. Bombs in alarm clocks go off when the hammer first comes down on the alarm. The hammer hits a pin in a detonator, the detonator fires the explosive and WHAM...
Bond raised his head above the back of the chair and watched the parcel.
'Tongtongtongtongtong...'
The muffled gonging went on for half a minute, then it started to slow down.
'tong... tong... tong... tong... tong...
'C-R-A-C-K...'
It was not louder than a 12-bore cartridge, but in the confined space it was an impressive explosion.
The parcel, in tatters, had fallen to the ground. The glasses and bottles on the sideboard were smashed and there was a black smudge of smoke on the grey wall behind them. Some pieces of glass tinkled on to the floor. There was a strong smell of gunpowder in the room.
Bond got slowly to his feet. He went to the window and opened it. Then he dialled Dexter's number. He spoke levelly.
'Pineapple... No, a small one... only some glasses... okay, thanks... of course not... 'bye.'
He skirted the debris, walked through the small lobby to the door leading into the passage, opened it, hung the DON'T DISTURB sign outside, locked it and went through into his bedroom.
By the time he had finished dressing there was a knock on the door.
'Who is it?' he called.
'Okay. Dexter.'
Dexter hustled in, followed by a sallow young man with a black box under his arm.
'Trippe, from Sabotage,' announced Dexter.
They shook hands and the young man at once went on his knees beside the charred remnants of the parcel.
He opened his box and took out some rubber gloves and a handful of dentist's forceps. With his tools he painstakingly extracted small bits of metal and glass from the charred parcel and laid them out on a broad sheet of blotting paper from the writing-desk.
While he worked, he asked Bond what had happened.
'About a half-minute alarm? I see. Hullo, what's this?' He delicately extracted a small aluminium container such as is used for exposed film. He put it aside.
After a few minutes he sat up on his haunches.
'Half-minute acid capsule,' he announced. 'Broken by the first hammer-stroke of the alarm. Acid eats through thin copper wire. Thirty seconds later wire breaks, releases plunger on to cap of this.' He held up the base of a cartridge. '4-bore elephant gun. Black powder. Blank. No shot. Lucky it wasn't a grenade. Plenty of room in the parcel. You'd have been damaged. Now let's have a look at this.' He picked up the aluminium cylinder, unscrewed it, extracted a small roll of paper, and unravelled it with his forceps.
He carefully flattened it out on the carpet, holding its corners down with four tools from his black box. It contained three typewritten sentences. Bond and Dexter bent forward.
'THE HEART OF THIS CLOCK HAS STOPPED TICKING,' they read, 'THE BEATS OF YOUR OWN HEART ARE NUMBERED. I KNOW THAT NUMBER AND I HAVE STARTED TO COUNT.'
The message was signed '1234567...?'
They stood up.
'Hm,' said Bond. 'Bogeyman stuff.'
'But how the hell did he know you were here?' asked Dexter.
Bond told him of the black sedan on 55th Street.
'But the point is,' said Bond, 'how did he know what I was here for? Shows he's got Washington pretty well sewn up. Must be a leak the size of the Grand Canyon somewhere.'
'Why should it be Washington?' asked Dexter testily. 'Anyway,' he controlled himself with a forced laugh, 'Hell and damnation. Have to make a report to Headquarters on this. So long, Mr Bond. Glad you came to no harm.'
'Thanks,' said Bond. 'It was just a visiting-card. I must return the compliment.'
Chapter 4
THE BIG SWITCHBOARD
When Dexter and his colleague had gone, taking the remains of the bomb with them, Bond took a damp towel and rubbed the smoke-mark off the wall. Then he rang for the waiter and, without explanation, told him to put the broken glass on his check and clear away the breakfast things. Then he took his hat and coat and went out on the street.
He spent the morning on Fifth Avenue and on Broadway, wandering aimlessly, gazing into the shop windows and watching the passing crowds. He gradually assimilated the casual gait and manners of a visitor from out of town, and when he tested himself out in a few shops and asked the way of several people he found that nobody looked at him twice.
He had a typical American meal at an eating house called 'Gloryfried Ham-N-Eggs' ('The Eggs We Serve Tomorrow Are Still in the Hens') on Lexington Avenue and then took a cab downtown to police headquarters, where he was due to meet Leiter and Dexter at 2.30.
A Lieutenant Binswanger of Homicide, a suspicious and crusty officer in his late forties, announced that Commissioner Monahan had said that they were to have complete co-operation from the Police Department. What could he do for them? They examined Mr Big's police record, which more or less duplicated Dexter's information, and they were shown the records and photographs of most of his known associates.
They went over the reports of the US Coastguard Service on the comings and goings of the yacht Secatur and also the comments of the US Customs Service, who had kept a close watch on the boat each time she had docked at St Petersburg.
These confirmed that the yacht had put in at irregular intervals over the previous six months and that she always tied up in the Port of St Petersburg at the wharf of the 'Ourobouros Worm and Bait Shippers Inc.', an apparently innocent concern whose main business was to sell live bait to fishing clubs throughout Florida, the Gulf of Mexico and further afield. The company also had a profitable sideline in sea-shells and coral for interior decoration, and a further sideline in tropical aquarium fish--particularly rare poisonous species for the research departments of medical and chemical foundations.
According to the proprietor, a Greek sponge-fisher from the neighbouring Tarpon Springs, the Secatur did big business with his company, bringing in cargoes of queen conchs and other shells from Jamaica and also highly prized varieties of tropical fish. These were purchased by Ourobouros Inc., stored in their warehouse