Bond 04 - Diamonds Are Forever (29 page)

Bond slowly took his feet off the trigger-pedals and sat back in the iron saddle. Automatically, with his eyes still on the leaping flames, his hands felt in the pockets of the faded khaki bush-shirt, borrowed from the Garrison C.O., for his lighter and cigarettes, and he took out a cigarette and lit it and put the things back in his pockets.

So this was the end of the diamond pipeline. And the last page on the file. He took a deep lungful of smoke and let it out between his teeth in a long, quiet sigh. Six corpses to love. Game and set.

Bond put up a hand and wiped it across his dripping forehead. He pushed back the damp lock of hair above the right eyebrow and the red blaze lit up the hard lean face and flickered in the tired eyes.

So this great red full stop marked the end of the Spangled Mob and the end of their fabulous traffic in diamonds. But not the end of the diamonds that were baking at the heart of the fire. They would survive and move off again across the world, discoloured, perhaps, but indestructible, as permanent as death.

And Bond suddenly remembered the eyes of the corpse which had once had a Blood Group F. They had been wrong. Death is forever. But so are diamonds.

Bond dropped down off the truck and started walking slowly towards the leaping fire. He smiled grimly to himself. All this business about death and diamonds was too solemn. For Bond it was just the end of another adventure. Another adventure for which a wry phrase of Tiffany Case might be the epitaph. He could see the passionate, ironical mouth saying the words:

‘It reads better than it lives.’

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Courtesy of the Cecil Beaton Studio Archive at Sotheby’s

I
AN
F
LEMING
was born in London on May 28, 1908. He was educated at Eton College and later spent a formative period studying languages in Europe. His first job was with Reuters News Agency where a Moscow posting gave him firsthand experience with what would become his literary
bête noire
—the Soviet Union. During World War II he served as Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence and played a key role in Allied espionage operations.

After the war he worked as foreign manager of the
Sunday Times
, a job that allowed him to spend two months each year in Jamaica. Here, in 1952, at his home “Goldeneye,” he wrote a book called
Casino Royale
—and James Bond was born. The first print run sold out within a month. For the next twelve years Fleming produced a novel a year featuring Special Agent 007, the most famous spy of the century. His travels, interests, and wartime experience lent authority to everything he wrote. Raymond Chandler described him as “the most forceful and driving writer of thrillers in England.” Sales soared when President Kennedy named the fifth title,
From Russia With Love
, one of his favorite books. The Bond novels have sold more than one hundred million copies worldwide, boosted by the hugely successful film franchise that began in 1962 with the release of
Dr No
.

He married Anne Rothermere in 1952. His story about a magical car, written in 1961 for their only son, Caspar, went on to become the well-loved novel and film
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
.

Fleming died of heart failure on August 12, 1964, at the age of fifty-six.

www.ianfleming.com