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They took it from there. It was fate.’
    ‘And observation,’ said Bond, stubbing out his cigarette. ‘So, does this mean I’m fully operational again?’ he said.
    ‘I have in mind a phased return,’ said M. ‘You do the reconnaissance. You do your course with R. Then we’ll see.’
    An unpleasant thought occurred to Bond. ‘You haven’t mentioned any of this to 009, have you? Or this new man, 004? I’m not going to do the leg work for another agent, am I?’
    M shifted uneasily in his chair. ‘Listen, 007. This Dr Gorner is potentially the most dangerous man the Service has yet encountered. I’m not setting you on the trail of some old dope peddler, but a man who seems intent on destroying the lives of millions and so undermining the influence of the West. I may use any number of operatives to stop him. I reserve that right.’
    Bond felt his boss’s grey eyes boring into him. He was sincere, all right. M coughed again. ‘There is a Russian link as well,’ he said, ‘that the Government’s particularly anxious about. A cold war can be waged in many ways. I need a report on my desk in six days’ time.’
    There was no point in taking the discussion any further, Bond thought. ‘Are the Deuxième in on this?’ he asked.
    ‘Yes. Get in touch with Mathis as soon as you arrive in Paris. Miss Moneypenny’s already booked your tickets and hotel.’
    ‘Thank you, sir.’ Bond rose to go.
    ‘And, James, listen. You will be careful, won’t you? I know that drugs don’t sound like arms or even diamonds. But I have a bad feeling about this man. Very bad. He has a lot of blood on his hands already.’
    Bond nodded, went out and closed the door.
    Miss Moneypenny looked up from her desk. She held upa sealed brown envelope. ‘You lucky boy,’ she said. ‘Paris in the spring. I’ve found you a lovely hotel. Oh, look, you forgot to give M his chocolates.’
    Bond put the red bag down on her desk. ‘You have them,’ he said.
    ‘You are sweet, James. Thank you. Your flight’s at six. You’ve just got time for your first session of deep breathing and relaxation exercises. I’ve made a booking for you at two thirty. On the second floor.’
    ‘You wait till I get back from Paris,’ Bond said, as he headed towards the lift. ‘Then I’ll give you cause for heavy breathing.’
    ‘“Deep breathing” was the expression, James. There is a difference.’
    ‘Or if you insist on splitting hairs I shall have to resort to something firmer. A good spanking, perhaps. So you won’t be able to sit down for a week.’
    ‘Really, James, you’re all talk these days.’
    The lift doors closed before Bond could come up with a reply. As he sank through the floors of the building, he remembered Larissa’s puzzled face in the hotel doorway in Rome. All talk. Perhaps Moneypenny was right.
    Bond passed forty-five minutes with a man called Julian Burton, who wore a collarless white shirt and instructed him on how to breathe from the pit of his belly.
    ‘Think of a jug you’re trying to fill with water. That’s your breathing. Take it right down to the base of your spine and your kidneys. Feel that jug fill up. Now close your eyes and think about a pleasant scene. Perhaps a beach or a lovely stream in a wood. A special private place. Just shut out all the cares of your day and concentrate on that one lovelypeaceful place. Now keep on breathing. Deeply in, right down to the small of your back. Shut out all other thoughts, just keep yourself in your one special place.’
    The ‘special place’ to which Bond’s thoughts kept returning was not a sylvan retreat but the skin on Larissa’s throat and neck he’d noticed in the hotel bar. Perhaps there was life in the old dog yet … At the end of the ‘session’, Bond promised Julian he’d do his deep-breathing exercises every day. Then he ran down the steps, rather than take the lift, to the front desk. He’d left it too late to achieve full operational fitness, but