Solo

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 photograph was on it. ‘James Bond. Journalist. Agence Presse Libre’ it stated.
    ‘Right . . .’ Bond said slowly. ‘So I’m to be a journalist for this French press agency.’
    M smiled, knowingly. Bond knew he was enjoying himself, drip-feeding the information about his mission this way, toying with him.
    ‘Small, left-of-centre press agency. Good reputation. International reach,’ M said. ‘Your old friend René Mathis from the Deuxième Bureau arranged it all, cleared everything.’
    ‘And where am I going to be doing my journalism?’ Bond asked dutifully, playing along, knowing the answer.
    ‘Zanzarim.’
    ‘And what am I meant to do once I get there?’
    M smiled, again, more broadly. ‘Stop the war, of course.’
     
    Bond told his new secretary, Araminta Beauchamp (pronounced Beecham) that he was not to be disturbed and sat down at his desk to read through all the material on Zanzarim contained in the file that Moneypenny had handed him.
    Bond leafed through the newspaper cuttings. The civil war in Zanzarim had become an international crisis because of the mass malnutrition of civilians. There were many shocking and heart-rending images of starving children – stick figures with macrocephalic heads, protruding bellies and glaucous, staring, uncomprehending eyes. Bond selected a Foreign Office briefing document entitled ‘The Origins of the Zanzarim Civil War’ and began to read.
     
    Zanzarim had been a small stable West African country when it gained