Solo

brigadier, with a black beret and a scarlet cockade standing on top of a burnt-out Zanzari armoured car. The caption beneath read: ‘Brigadier Solomon “The Scorpion” Adeka – the African Napoleon’. So, this was the soldier who was the architect of Dahum’s astonishing resilience – a military prodigy who was somehow contriving to inflict defeat upon defeat on an army ten times the size of his.
    ‘Brigadier Adeka is the key,’ M had said, simply. ‘He’s the man who’s single-handedly keeping this war going, by all accounts. He’s the target – the object of your mission. I want you to go to Zanzarim, infiltrate yourself into Dahum and get close to this man.’
    ‘And what am I meant to do then, sir?’ Bond had asked, knowing the answer but keeping his face impassive, giving nothing away.
    ‘I’d like you to find a way of making him a less efficient soldier,’ M had said with a vague smile.
     
    There was a knock on his door and Bond looked up, irritated, and Araminta Beauchamp stepped in. She was a pretty girl with a fringe of dark hair that almost covered her eyes. She kept flicking it away with a toss of her head.
    Bond sighed. ‘Minty, I said absolutely no interruptions. Don’t you understand plain English?’
    ‘Sorry, sir. Q Branch has just called to say that they can see you any time that’s convenient to you.’
    ‘I know that. I’ve just been speaking to M.’
    ‘I thought it was important . . .’ Her chin quivered and she dragged her fringe away with a finger to reveal eyes about to weep tears of penitence.
    ‘Thank you,’ Bond said, gently. ‘You’re right. It probably is. And please don’t cry, Minty.’
    Bond rode the lift down to Q Branch’s domain in the basement and announced himself. He was met by a young bespectacled man who introduced himself as Quentin Dale. He looked about twenty-five years old and had the eager proselytising manner of a doorstep missionary.
    ‘I don’t think we’ve met before, 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