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Commander,’ Dale said, cheerfully. ‘I’ve only been here a couple of months.’ He led Bond down a corridor to his small office, showed him to a seat and sat down opposite, removing a file from his desk and pushing his spectacles back on his nose.
    ‘You’ll need some inoculations if you’re going to West Africa,’ he said. ‘Shall we arrange them or would you prefer your own doctor?’
    ‘I’ll deal with that,’ Bond said.
    ‘Yellow fever, smallpox, polio – and you’ll need a supply of antimalarials. They say Daraprim is very good.’
    ‘Fine,’ Bond said, thinking that the only problem with Q Branch was that they treated everyone as a naive, innocent, not to say ignorant, fool.
    ‘We don’t think you should go to Zanzarim armed,’ Dale said, consulting the notes in his file. ‘Because of the war the airport searches at Sinsikrou can be very thorough. And you’re working for a French press agency . . .’ Dale smiled, sympathetically, as if he was about to break bad news. ‘And the French aren’t very popular with the Zanzaris.’
    ‘Why’s that?’
    ‘They’ve given a kind of de facto recognition of the Dahum state. The French embassy here in London is where the Dahum diplomatic mission is based.’ He screwed up his face.
    ‘I suppose it was their colony for a while.’
    ‘True,’ Dale said.
    ‘But I’ll be pretty popular in Dahum itself.’
    ‘Exactly – that’s the logic.’ Dale smiled again, this time approvingly, as if the most backward boy in the class had answered a difficult question. He reached into another drawer and took out a zipped pigskin toilet bag, opening it and showing Bond its contents. Bond saw that it was a luxury shaving kit: safety razor, Old Spice shaving stick and badger-bristle brush, aftershave, talcum powder, a deodorant roll-on, all tucked in their respective pockets and slings.
    ‘We can’t give you a gun, but we can give you some potency,’ Dale said. He held up the aftershave. ‘A tablespoonful of this will knock a man out for twelve hours. Add a teaspoon of this’ – he showed Bond the talcum powder – ‘and he’ll go into a coma for two to three days. It’s completely tasteless, by the way. You can put it in any drink or food, no one will notice.’
    ‘What if I add two teaspoons?’ Bond asked.
    ‘You’ll probably kill him. Best to make it three teaspoons to be on the safe side, if you want to bring about death. Coma, then a massive heart attack,’ he smiled and pushed his spectacles back on his nose again. ‘Should give you plenty of time to make your escape.’
    He took an envelope from his file and handed it over.
    ‘This contains all the information you need. And your plane ticket to Zanzarim. BOAC on Friday evening. One way.’
    ‘So I’m not coming back,’ Bond said, drily.
    ‘Our station head in Sinsikrou will arrange your journey home. It’s not clear how long you’ll be in the country, anyway – or even if you’ll be leaving from it.’
    ‘I suppose not. Who’s our station head?’
    ‘Ah . . .’ he looked at his file. ‘One E. B. Ogilvy-Grant. It’s been very recently set up. A business card with the address and phone number is in the envelope and confirmation of your reservation at the Excelsior Gateway Hotel. It’s near the airport. Ogilvy-Grant will make contact with you after you’ve landed.’
    Bond took the business card from the envelope. It read: ‘E. B. Ogilvy-Grant MA (Cantab). Palm Oil Export and Agricultural Services.’ There was a telephone number in the corner.
    ‘Anything else, Commander?’
    Bond zipped up the toilet bag.
    ‘What about communications? Connecting with base, here?’
    ‘Ogilvy-Grant will take care of all that.’
    Bond stood up, slowly. Something was bothering him. It all seemed a bit vague, a bit wing-and-a-prayer, a bit improvised. But maybe this was what a mission to a civil-war-torn West African country involved. Once he was actually in Zanzarim and had met