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his security detail in a run-up to the evening’s main event: the man’s rendition to a black site in Poland.
    Tucked away inconspicuously in the hierarchy of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the ODG was housed in a narrow, six-story Edwardian building on a quiet road, just off Devonshire Street. It was separated from bustling Marylebone Road by lackluster—but camouflaging—solicitors’ quarters, NGO offices and doctors’ surgeries.
    Bond now motored to the entrance of the tunnel leading to the car park beneath the building. He glanced into the iris scanner, then was vetted again, this time by a human being. The barrier lowered and he eased the car forward in search of a parking bay.
    The lift, too, checked Bond’s blue eyes, then took him up to the ground floor. He stepped into the armorer’s office, beside the pistol range, and handed the locked steel box to redheaded Freddy Menzies, a former corporal in the SAS and one of the finest firearms men in the business. He would make sure the Walther was cleaned, oiled and checked for damage, the magazines filled with Bond’s preferred loads.
    “She’ll be ready in half an hour,” Menzies said. “She behave herself, 007?”
    Bond had professional affection for certain tools of his trade but he didn’t personify them—and, if anything, a .40-caliber Walther, even the compact Police Pistol Short, would definitely be a “he.” “Acquitted itself well,” he replied.
    He took the lift to the third floor, where he stepped out and turned left, walking down a bland, white-painted corridor, the walls a bit scuffed, their monotony broken by prints of London from the era of Cromwell through Victoria’s reign and of battlefields aplenty. Someone had brightened up the windowsills with vases of greenery—fake, of course; the real thing would have meant employing external maintenance staff to water and prune.
    Bond spotted a young woman in front of a desk at the end of a large open area filled with workstations. Sublime, he had thought, upon meeting her a month ago. Her face was heart-shaped, with high cheekbones, and surrounded by Rossetti-red hair that cascaded from her marvelous temples to past her shoulders. A tiny off-center dimple, which he found completely charming, distressed her chin. Her hazel eyes, golden green, held yours intently, and to Bond, her figure was as a woman’s should be: slim and elegant. Her unpainted nails were trimmed short. Today she was in a knee-length black skirt and an apricot shirt, high-necked, yet thin enough to hint at lace beneath, managing to be both tasteful and provocative. Her legs were embraced by nylon the color of café au lait.
    Stockings or tights? Bond couldn’t help but wonder.
    Ophelia Maidenstone was an intelligence analyst with MI6. She was stationed with the ODG as a liaison officer because the Group was not an intelligence-gathering organization; it was operational, tactical, largely. Accordingly, like the Cabinet and the prime minister, it was a consumer of “product,” as intelligence was called. And the ODG’s main supplier was Six.
    Admittedly, Philly’s appearance and forthright manner were what had initially caught Bond’s attention, just as her tireless efforts and resourcefulness had held it. Equally alluring, though, was her love of driving. Her favorite vehicle was a BSA 1966 Spitfire, the A65, one of the most beautiful motorcycles ever made. It wasn’t the most powerful bike in the Birmingham Small Arms line but it was a true classic and, when properly tuned (which, God bless her, she did herself), it left a broad streak of rubber at the takeoff line. She’d told Bond she liked to drive in all weather and had bought an insulated leather jumpsuit that let her take to the roads whenever she fancied. He’d imagined it as an extremely tight-fitting garment and arched an eyebrow. He’d received in return a sardonic smile, which told him that his gesture had ricocheted like a badly placed bullet.
    She