Ian Fleming's "Dr. No":
"The three blind men would not have been incongruous in Kingston, where there are many diseased people on the streets, but, in this quiet rich empty street, they made an unpleasant impression. And it was odd that they should all be Chinese Negroes. This is not a common mixture of bloods. ...
At this time precisely, even if they were in the middle of a hand, Strangways had to go to his 'office' and 'make a call'. It was a damned nuisance. But Strangways was a vital part of their four and they put up with it. It was never explained what 'the call' was, and no one asked. Strangways's job was 'hush' and that was that. He was rarely away for more than twenty minutes and it was understood that he paid for his absence with a round of drinks.
The drinks came and the three men began to talk racing.
In fact, this was the most important moment in Strangways' day-the time of his duty radio contact with the powerful transmitter on the roof of the building in Regent's Park that is the headquarters of the Secret Service. Every day, at eighteen-thirty local time, unless he gave' warning the day before that he would not be on the air-when he had business on one of the other islands in his territory, for instance, or was seriously ill-he would transmit his daily report and receive his orders. If he failed to come on the air precisely at six-thirty, there would be a second call, the 'Blue' call, at seven, and, finally, the 'Red' call at seven-thirty. After this, if his transmitter remained silent, it was 'Emergency', and Section III, his controlling authority in London, would urgently get on the job of finding out what had happened to him.
Even a 'Blue' call means a bad mark for an agent unless his 'Reasons in Writing' are unanswerable. London's radio schedules round the world are desperately tight and their minute disruption by even one extra call is a dangerous nuisance. Strangways had never suffered the ignominy of a 'Blue' call, let alone a 'Red', and was as certain as could be that he never would do so. Every evening, at precisely six-fifteen, he left Queen's Club, got into his car and drove for ten minutes up into the foothills of the Blue Mountains to his neat bungalow with the fabulous view over Kingston harbour. At six twenty-five he walked through the hall to the office at the back. He unlocked the door and locked it again behind him. Miss Trueblood, who passed as his secretary, but was in fact his No. 2 and a former Chief Officer WRNS, would already be sitting in front of the dials inside the dummy filing cabinet. She would have the earphones on and would be making first contact, tapping out his call-sign, WXN, on 14 megacycles. There would be a shorthand pad on her elegant knees. Strangways would drop into the chair beside her and pick up the other pair of headphones and, at exactly six twenty-eight, he would take over from her and wait for the sudden hollowness in the ether that meant that WWW in London was coming in to acknowledge.
It was an iron routine. Strangways was a man of iron routine. Unfortunately, strict patterns of behaviour can be deadly if they are read by an enemy.
Strangways, a tall lean man with a black patch over the right eye and the sort of aquiline good looks you associate with the bridge of a destroyer, walked quickly across the mahogany panelled hallway of Queen's Club and pushed through the light mosquito-wired doors and ran down the three steps to the path.
There was nothing very much on his mind except the sensual pleasure of the clean fresh evening air and the memory of the finesse that had given him his three spades. There was this case, of course, the case he was working on, a curious and complicated affair that M had rather nonchalantly tossed over the air at him two weeks earlier. But it was going well. A chance lead into the Chinese community had paid off. Some-odd angles had come to light-for the present the merest shadows of angles-but if they jelled, thought Strangways as. he strode down the gravel path and into Richmond Road, he might find himself involved in something very odd indeed.
Strangways shrugged his shoulders. Of course it wouldn't turn out like that. The fantastic never materialized in his line of business. There would be some drab solution that had been embroidered by overheated imaginations and the usual hysteria of the Chinese.
Automatically, another part of Strangways's mind took in the three blind men. They were tapping slowly towards him down the sidewalk. They were about twenty yards away. He calculated that they would pass him a second or two before he reached his car. Out of shame for his own health and gratitude for it, Strangways felt for a coin. He ran his thumbnail down its edge to make sure it was a florin and not a penny. He took it out. He was parallel with the beggars. How odd, they were all Chigroes! How very odd! Strangways's hand went out. The coin clanged in the tin cup.
“Bless you, Master,” said the leading man. “Bless you,” echoed the other two.
The car key was in Strangways's hand. Vaguely he registered the moment of silence as the tapping of the white sticks ceased. It was too late.
As Strangways had passed the last man, all three had swivelled. The back two had fanned out a step to have a clear field of fire. Three revolvers, ungainly with their sausage-shaped silencers, whipped out of holsters concealed among the rags. With disciplined precision the three men aimed at different points down Strangways's spine-one between the shoulders, one in the small of the back, one at the pelvis.
The three heavy coughs were almost one. Strangways's body was hurled forward as if it had been kicked. It lay absolutely still in the small puff of dust from the sidewalk." ...
"'WXN calling WWW... WXN calling WWW...
WXN... WXN... WXN...'
The centre finger of Mary Trueblood's right hand stabbed softly, elegantly, at the key. She lifted her left wrist. Six twenty-eight. He was a minute late. Mary Trueblood smiled at the thought of the little open Sunbeam tearing up the road towards her. Now, in a second, she would hear the quick step, then the key in the lock and he would be sitting beside her. There would be the apologetic smile as he reached for the earphones. “Sorry, Mary. Damned car wouldn't start.” Or, “You'd think the blasted police knew my number by now. Stopped me at Halfway Tree.” Mary Trueblood took the second pair of earphones off their hook and put them on his chair to save him half a second.
'... WXN calling WWW____WXN calling WWW____'
She tuned the dial a hair's breadth and tried again. Her watch said six-twenty-nine. She began to worry. In a matter of seconds, London would be coming in. Suddenly she thought, God, what could she do if Strangways wasn't on time! It was useless for her to acknowledge London and pretend she was him-useless and dangerous. Radio Security would be monitoring the call, as they monitored every call from an agent. Those instruments which measured the minute peculiarities in an operator's 'fist' would at once detect it wasn't Strangways at the key. Mary Trueblood had been shown the forest of dials in the quiet room on the top floor at headquarters, had watched as the dancing hands registered the weight of each pulse, the speed of each cipher group, the stumble over a particular letter. The Controller had explained it all to her when she had joined the Caribbean station five years before-how a buzzer would sound and the contact be automatically broken if the wrong operator had come on the air. It was the basic protection against a Secret Service transmitter falling into enemy hands. And, if an agent had been captured and was being forced to contact London under torture, he had only to add a few hairbreadth peculiarities to his usual 'fist' and they would tell the story of his capture as clearly as if he had announced it en clair.
Now it had come! Now she was hearing the hollowness in the ether that meant London was coming in. Mary Trueblood glanced at her watch. Six-thirty. Panic! But now, at last, there were the footsteps in the hall. Thank God! In a second he would come in. She must protect him! Desperately she decided to take a chance and keep the circuit open.
'WWW calling WXN____WWW calling WXN____Can you hear me?... can you hear me?' London was coming over strong, searching for the Jamaica station.
The footsteps were at the door.
Coolly, confidently, she tapped back: 'Hear you loud and clear... Hear you loud and clear... Hear you..."
Behind her there was an explosion. Something hit her on the ankle. She looked down. It was the lock of the door.
Mary Trueblood swivelled sharply on her chair. A man stood in the doorway. It wasn't Strangways. It was a big Negro with yellowish skin and slanting eyes. There was a gun in his hand. It ended in a thick black cylinder.
Mary Trueblood opened her mouth to scream.
The man smiled broadly. Slowly, lovingly, he lifted the gun and shot her three times in and around the left breast.
The girl slumped sideways off her chair. The earphones slipped off her golden hair on to the floor. For perhaps a second the tiny chirrup of London sounded out into the room. Then it stopped. The buzzer at the Controller's desk in Radio Security had signalled that something was wrong on WXN.".......
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| "It's the usual, Double-O Seven. Hillary's big blabbermouth on her "secret" Bribery Server has gotten more of our agents killed again. I want you to go to Jamaica, splash around with Ursula and wait for James Comey to re-open the investigation." |
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| "That's a very fine pair of secret agents we lost. They disappeared right after Hillary pressed "send"." |
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| "Hillary sent me to confiscate your guns, James." "Damn it, Comey--she's not the president!" "But...but all the networks said she was!" "You mean the same networks that say Obama's not a Muslim?" |
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| "Quarrel, we've got to find Sec. No's Secret Lair before she gets even more agents killed! Look for weapons, bodies, smashed Blackberries, Strangways' uranium samples, Weiner's teen-age groupies, Brownshirt thugs from the Oval Office and, above all, very large piles of foreign cash." |
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| "Over here, Mr. James; Hillary left a long trail of dead bodies in her wake!" |
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| "Look; it's our Top Secret Flame-Throwing Tank that went missing!" |
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| "Sure, I sold the tank to the Libyan rebels. How was I supposed to know they'd use it to burn down the Embassy? What difference, at this point, does it make?" |
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| "No wonder Creamer's Goon Squads wear Haz-Mat suits; the ClintonStench in here is revolting! I need...we need a shower." |
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| "Comey's re-opened my case...they're closing in on us!" "What do you mean "us", Sec. No?" "You've got to help me get away--I feel like a cornered rat!" "Very well. Perhaps Comrade P will let you hide in his Undersea Fortress." |
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| "Sorry, Babushka. Is no room for you--unless you vish to sell me the rest of America's uranium!" |
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| "It's all over, Granny. Your Bribery Empire is closed and you're headed to Sing Sing. And tell that bashtard Trebek he's next!"  but if subpoenaed, I assert my Game Show Right to answer all questions in the form of a question!" What is 'How Many of Our Secret Agents Did Hillary Kill With Her Emails?' for all the bribe money in the world, Alex.  The Endless End Double-O UPDATE: You know how Bond Villains sometimes make their quick getaway in a SuperSpecial VillainVehicle CrimeCar? I don't think that's going to happen this time:  |
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