Solo Read Online Free PDF

‘Rather, happy birthday in arrears. Did you have an enjoyable day off, last week?’
    ‘I’d rather hoped you’d forgotten it was my birthday,’ Bond said, his voice thick and raspy. He could hardly swallow.
    ‘No, no. It’s my business to know these things,’ she said, standing and going to a filing cabinet. ‘All the mundane little facts of your life.’
    Sometimes, Bond thought, Moneypenny’s banter could verge on the annoyingly self-satisfied. He was vaguely irritated that she must know how old he was.
    ‘You don’t happen to have a couple of aspirin, do you?’ he asked.
    ‘You’ve obviously been celebrating far too enthusiastically,’ she said, returning to her desk and handing him a file. Bond took it, unreflectingly.
    ‘I’ve got a sore throat,’ he said. ‘Touch of flu, I think. I’ve been in bed by eight the last two nights.’
    ‘Your secret’s safe with me,’ she said in the same dry tone, somehow producing a glass of water and then two aspirins from a drawer in her desk. Bond took them, thankfully, swallowing the pills down.
    The light above M’s office door changed from red to green.
    ‘Off you go, James,’ Moneypenny said and turned to her typewriter.
    M was standing at one of the three windows of his office that looked out over Regent’s Park. His head seemed hunched down on his shoulders as if his back were tense and knotted. He seemed deeply thoughtful, not registering Bond’s entrance in any way. His pipe, Bond noticed, lay on his desk blotter, empty of tobacco, and Bond wondered if he’d have to sit through the usual interminable, tantalising, pipe-filling, pipe-lighting routine before he found out why he’d been summoned. Bond cleared his throat and winced.
    ‘You wanted to see me, sir,’ Bond said, going to stand in front of the wide desk, placing Moneypenny’s file to one side.
    M turned – his face looked tanned, weather-beaten. Working in his garden, Bond thought. He looked fit, full of vigour for an elderly man. What age would M be, Bond found himself wondering? He must be at least—
    ‘What’s wrong with your voice?’ M asked, suspiciously.
    ‘Bit of a sore throat. Shaking off a cold,’ Bond said. ‘Moneypenny’s given me some medication.’
    ‘Smoking too much, more like,’ M said, sitting down and picking up and flourishing his pipe. ‘You want to take up one of these. Haven’t had a sore throat since I was at school.’
    ‘Interesting idea, sir,’ Bond said, diplomatically. He would rather give up smoking than smoke a pipe.
    ‘Sit down, 007, and do light up if you want to.’
    Bond sat down and took out a cigarette as M rummaged in a drawer of his desk and drew out an atlas. He opened it, turned it and pushed it across the desk towards Bond.
    ‘Tell me what you know about this place,’ M said.
    Bond looked at the open page. An African country. A small West African country called Zanzarim.
    ‘Zanzarim,’ Bond said, thinking. ‘There’s a war going on there. A civil war. Civilians starving to death by the thousand.’
    ‘By the tens of thousand, some would have it,’ M said, leaning back in his chair. ‘Anything else?’
    ‘Used to be a British colony, didn’t it?’ Bond said. ‘Before they changed the name.’
    ‘League of Nations mandated territory to be precise. Upper Zanza State. Got independence five years ago. Old German colony established in 1906. We and the French liberated it in 1914 – split it in two. There was a plebiscite in 1953 and the Zanzaris voted for us.’
    ‘Unusual.’
    ‘You forget how dominant and impressive the British Empire was, even in those days, 007. It was the sensible, obvious thing to do.’
    ‘Oh, yes. Moneypenny gave me this file.’ Bond handed it over.
    ‘No, no. It’s for you. Open it.’
    Bond did so and saw a mass of newspaper clippings and documents entitled ‘Agence Presse Libre’ – then something fell on the floor and Bond picked it up. It was a plastic identity card and his