Read Bond - 27 - Never send flowers for Free Online

suggested the tests. In a word, the capsule contained tetrodoxin." `As in blowfish?" `You've got it. They don't come more exotic than that.
    `Remind me." So, as they ate, Fredericka talked, at first almost casually, about tetrodoxin.
    Tetrodoxin was the poison of choice of the ancient Japanese shadow warriors, the followers of Ninjitsu, the Ninjas. They would use it to anoint the now familiar shuriken throwing stars and for centuries one of the most secret arts of Ninjitsu was the method for preparing the deadly nerve poison.
    During World War Two one of the legends of those who fought in the jungle, was the story of the silent night-killers who moved, hooded, like cats through dense foliage, reaching out to touch sentries, or sleeping soldiers, who would die of `snakebite'. Only later did military doctors realize the bite had been delivered from a piece of sharpened bamboo dipped into tetrodoxin.
    The poison comes from the reproductive sac of a species of blowfish called the tetrodontidae. This fish is a native to the coastal waters of Japan and Hawaii, and, as it is a pretty creature, it can often be seen gracing tropical aquariums, in homes as well as zoos.
    Tetrodoxin is found in the female fish, and then usually only in the mating season February.
    At this time, the female egg sac is swollen with around two to three liquid grams of tetrodoxin, which is enough to poison three to four hundred humans. To retrieve the sac from the fish without breaking it, necessitates alarming the fish so that it does its best aggressive trick, inflating itself to two or three times its normal size. At that moment you slit the side of the creature with a razor-sharp knife and remove the sac intact.
    In recent years many schools of the Japanese culinary art now openly taught the same ancient secret for removing the poison, for removing it is necessary to make a particular delicacy harmless.
    Skilled chefs would do this trick, for the tetrodontidae is the main ingredient in the gourmet dish Fugu. Yet, even now, some are not completely adept at removing the sac, and each year there are still a number of deaths in Japan from eating Fugu which has been improperly prepared.
    `It's a horrible way to die." She shuddered, her skin suddenly pale at the thought. `Complete paralysis and respiratory failure in twenty seconds, the Japanese doctor says." `Fast, though." Bond sipped his wine, holding a little in his mouth before swallowing, savouring the flavour. `Over before you know it. He mention that they still use it for suicide?" She shook her head: a cross between saying no and driving the spectre of death by this kind of poison from her brain.
    `I read somewhere that people who want out can buy the stuff from chefs. They get drunk then prick themselves with a needle soaked in the wretched venom." `The cops've found the place where the sniper holed up." She was distancing herself from the effect, returning to the first cause. `We can go up there tomorrow. Whoever it was made a comfortable hide for himself, slightly higher up the mountain.
    `Must've been pretty sure of his target, unless our His March was chosen at random." `That's exactly what the cops said. In fact it's what they're afraid of, a killer taking pot shots at people with poison darts or capsules. Not the happiest of thoughts, a random poisoner on the loose." `Which is easier to deal with? The random killer, or some terrorist organization intent on revenge, or headlines?" `One's as bad as the other, really. Scares the hell out of me." `And you don't look as if you scare easily." `I don't?" `You're a professional, so..
    `Don't you get scared, James? Don't all of us?" `Of course I do, but only when the situation warrants it. We're only going through the motions, investigating a murder. We're working like a couple of homicide detectives, there's no danger in that." She cocked an eyebrow, and swallowed another piece of lamb. `That's how you think of it?" `Naturally." `Well, I've seen the