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The gasoline would have ignited, and in turn this would have set off the
Thermite.
Thermite burns rapidly with a temperature in excess of 4,0000 Fahrenheit
and so fiercely that it was at one time used to cut and weld metal in
shipyards.
Bond's one stray bullet had pierced the keg, so spilling the contents,
while the flare had ignited the gasoline, incinerating Dragonpol in the
water.
Happily, the fire did not spread on to Big Thunder Mountain or back to
any of the other exhibits.
Later, the French police learned that Dragonpol had bribed a lorry
driver to as the driver said `Look the other way." Undoubtedly, the keg
had been brought into the theme park with a normal delivery. Within
forty-eight hours, the Disney security people had put new restrictions
on all goods entering the facility.
By eight that Sunday morning, nobody would have known that there had
even been an incident, though one look at Bond would have suggested that
he was the loser in a barroom brawl. The Disney emergency unit had
patched him up, but there was no way short of make-up to hide the
bruises.
Now he waited near the main entrance, surprised at the lack of police
and local protection, which he had expected to be there in force ready
to greet the royal party. So he was bewildered when he saw Ben, still
in jeans and a T-shirt, wandering back to his office in the warren of
tunnels beneath Disneyland.
`Nobody's told you?" Ben still wore his smile, but his eyebrows shot up
in his own unique version of disbelief.
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`Told me what?" `It's off. She's not coming.
`Last night's little business did the trick, then?" `No, James.
This morning's little business did the trick." `That's a question of
semantics.
`No, I mean less than an hour ago." `An hour..." Ben explained that the
royal party had been staying with friends on the outskirts of Paris, and
the Press had got wind of the location. The story was that they were
there, cameras and notebooks at the ready, when she had emerged with her
two children, at seven a.m for the drive to Euro Disney would take at
least an hour.
`It seems that one of your people was with the royal detectives.
I haven't got the details, but she spotted Dragonpol's sister among the
crowd. The lady in question had a very nasty hand grenade in her
handbag. Your officer disarmed her. So, it's all over. The Princess
made an immediate decision and called off the visit.
`Pity she didn't take notice earlier.
It was not until he arrived back in London, later in the day, that Bond
learned the identity of the officer who had spotted Maeve Horton.
The taxi from Heathrow had dropped him in the King's Road and he walked,
carrying his garment bag, to the Regency house. He was about to put his
key in the lock when the door was opened by his elderly housekeeper,
May, now returned from her jaunt up to Scotland.
May looked at him accusingly. `Mr James, there's a young woman here who
says she's a house guest. She's a pleasant lass, and speaks English
like a native, though she tells me she's foreign." To be `foreign' as
far as May was concerned, was tantamount to being a carrier of what she
called `that terrible Black Thing they had in the Middle Ages'
Fredericka von Grusse sat in the living-room wearing a very stylish
pants suit in red, with a lot of military flair and gold buttons on the
jacket.
`You didn't tell me about the Scotch dragon,' she whispered after they
got their breath back.
`Flick, the word is Scottish. I thought you spoke English.
Scotch is a drink-though I'm always reading American novels which refer
to Scottish people as Scotch. It's like calling citizens of Oporto
winos." `I know,' she grinned. `I love you when you get all
correctional. I hear there was a bonfire party out at Euro Disney.
`You've heard about Maeve old Hort as well, have you?" `Heard about her?
I nabbed her." `You ?` It all came out over a light supper, served by
May who had begun to soften towards Fredericka.
Fredericka von Grusse had worked some kind of witchcraft on M and had
been sent as the service representative among the Scotland Yard royal
detectives.
When it came to leaving the house where the Princess and her children
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had spent the night, Fredericka had gone to take a look at the
journalists before they brought the royal party out.
`Maeve was standing there, trying to look insignificant among the
photographers,' she told him. `So I took no notice, pretended I hadn't
see her. I walked around and chatted to some of the Press people, then
worked my way behind her, did a kind of mental frisk and knew she was up
to no good." `So?" He liked the part about doing a mental frisk.
`So I jammed my gun in her ear and told her I'd blow her head off if she
moved. The cops came down, searched her and carted her away.
She had this damned great grenade in her handbag, and there's no doubt
she was going to use it.
Fredericka had been allowed to sit in on the first interrogation and it
was immediately obvious that Maeve's love for brother David was of the
unbalanced and unhealthy variety. `She said she'd have died for him,
that he had more talent in his little finger than Oh, you know how these
obsessive people go on. The whole damned family was crazy if you ask
me." It also became clear that sister Maeve was the true answer to one
of the great Dragonpol conundrums. `She did the flowers,' Fredericka
told him. `Admitted it almost as soon as I asked. If anyone had
bothered to check her passport, they'd have found she followed on
David's heels, taking those bloody roses with her and making sure that
they were delivered to the gravesides. Oh, by the way, M wants us both
in the office by nine tomorrow morning.
`To congratulate us, no doubt." Bond cocked his head and raised a
quizzical eyebrow.
`Or to ask for a full explanation of two dead bodies at Schloss Drache."
When it came to it, M asked no awkward questions. He spoke for a long
time about the Dragonpol incident, and getting quite serious about it at
one point. `Friend Dragonpol,' he said, `is, I believe, a symptom of
the sick and dangerous society in which we live." From there he launched
into the real reason he had summoned them to his office.
`There are changes in the air." He seemed tense and serious.
`Changes that will affect this service drastically. The job's changing
with the world, though I personally believe the world's a more dangerous
place than it was when we had a cut-and-dried cold war. A thousand
times more dangerous, which is probably why the powers-that-be are
demanding a complete reorganization. It's going to affect me, and it's
particularly going to affect you two. You'll get the full details of
promotion and the new job within the week. I simply wanted to warn you
before it happens.
`I hope it's not playing detective again,' Bond muttered. `That's too
dangerous.
`Ah." M gave them an enigmatic look.
`Am I going to like the changes?" Bond asked.
`Probably. Almost certainly. You'll be doing some very different
things in the future, James; and so will you, Fraulein von Grusse." He
picked up his old pipe and began to load it with the evil-smelling
tobacco he had smoked since Bond first knew him.
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`They'll be bringing you in here for a briefing in a few days.
Until then, I suggest you take a short leave. If I'm right, it'll be
the last one you'll get for a long time." He dismissed them with an
almost perfunctory gesture, but as they reached the door, he called Bond
back.
`James, do I sense the possibility of wedding bells between you and
Fraulein von Grusse?" `I don't know, sir. Maybe. Maybe not.
Why do you ask?" M made his familiar harrumphing noise. `I suppose
that, contrary to your experience, I'm really just a sentimental old
matchmaker." `Really, sir?" He didn't believe a word of it.
`I'm just saying that you could do worse, James.
You could do much worse." `Well, sir, if it does happen, I'd ask only [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] - zanotowane.pl
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