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PART ONE: MONDAY

CHAPTER I

SECRET PAPER-WORK

THE TWO thirty-eights roared simultaneously

The walls of the underground room took the crash of sound and batted it to and fro between the sucked from each end of the rooht hand of how he had drawn and fired with one sweep from the left made him confident He broke the chamber sideways out of the Colt Detective Special and waited, his gun pointing at the floor, while the Instructor walked the twenty yards towards hiallery

Bond saw that the Instructor was grinning “I don’t believe it,” he said “I got you that time”

The Instructor came up with him “I’m in hospital, but you’re dead, sir,” he said In one hand he held the silhouette target of the upper body of a man In the other a polaroid film, postcard size He handed this to Bond and they turned to a table behind thenifying glass

Bond picked up the glass and bent over the photograph It was a flash-light photograph of hiht hand there was a blurred burst of white flalass carefully on the left side of his dark jacket In the centre of his heart there was a tiny pinpoint of light

Without speaking, the Instructor laid the big white et under the lamp Its heart was a black bullseye, about three inches across Just below and half an inch to the right was the rent made by Bond’s bullet

“Through the left wall of the stomach and out at the back,” said the Instructor, with satisfaction He took out a pencil and scribbled an addition on the side of the target “Twenty rounds and I make it you owe me seven-and-six, sir,” he said impassively

Bond laughed He counted out some silver “Double the stakes next Monday,” he said

“That’s all right with me,” said the Instructor “But you can’t beat the et into the teahts a rest and spend soe they’ve just brought out is going to mean at least 7900 out of a possible 8000 to win Most of your bullets have got to be in the X-ring and that’s only as big as a shilling when it’s under your nose At a hundred yards it isn’t there at all”

“To hell with the Dewar Trophy,” said Bond “It’s your money I’un into his cupped hand and laid theun on the table “See you Monday Same time?”

“Ten o’clock’ll be fine, sir,” said the Instructor, jerking down the two handles on the iron door He smiled at Bond’s back as it disappeared up the steep concrete stairs leading to the ground floor He was pleased with Bond’s shooting, but he wouldn’t have thought of telling him that he was the best shot in the Service Only M was allowed to know that, and his Chief of Staff, ould be told to enter the scores of that day’s shoot on Bond’s Confidential Record

Bond pushed through the green baize door at the top of the basement steps and walked over to the lift that would take hient’s Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service He was satisfied with his score but not proud of it His trigger finger twitched in his pocket as he wondered how to conjure up that little extra flash of speed that would beat the et for just three seconds, fired back at hiht airaphed it as he stood and fired from the circle of chalk on the floor

The lift doors sighed open and Bond got in The liftman could smell the cordite on him They always sallery He liked it It rehth and rested the stuainst the control handle

If only the light was better, thought Bond But M insisted that all shooting should be done in averagely bad conditions

A diet that shot back at you was as close as he could get to copying the real thing ‘Shooting hell out of a piece of cardboard doesn’t prove anything’ was his single-line introduction to the Small-arms Defence Manual

The lift eased to a stop and as Bond stepped out into the drab Ministry-of-Works-green corridor and into the bustling world of girls carrying files, doors opening and shutting, and hts of his shoot and prepared himself for the normal business of a routine day at Headquarters

He walked along to the end door on the right It was as anonymous as all the others he had passed No nuhth floor, and your office was not on that floor, someone would come and fetch you to the room you needed and see you back into the lift when you were through

Bond knocked and waited He looked at his watch Eleven o’clock Mondays were hell Two days of dockets and files to plough through And week-ends were generally busy tiraphed in coot a hter on the roads The weekly bags froton, Istanbul, and Tokyo would have co for him