Bond sat on the couch while Stamp talked quietly with two of his men. Ostensibly, Bond was trying to make a list of all pending appointments that he would have to cancel in order to do this job for Stamp. In reality, Bond was trying to figure out a way to get out of the mess he was in.
The American FBI had given Bond no tracking device, no hidden weapons, no emergency plan, no way to send out a distress signal. Bond had memorized Vandenberg's telephone number, but he couldn't risk calling that number. Bond would be using Stamp's telephone, and who knows who might be listening in on the call?
If a few hours had passed and Bond had failed to call Vandenberg as planned, then Vandenberg would know that something went wrong. But Bond doubted that Vandenberg could arrange any rescue attempt on short notice. It would be more likely, wouldn't it, that Vandenberg would assume that Bond had been found out, and killed?
One possibility would be to make a break for it. But Stamp's security was undoubtedly formidable, and Bond thought it probable that he would be caught or killed before getting too far. Bond also suspected that there were more dogs on the premises than the one he'd seen by the front door. Those dogs could be counted upon to be mean, and to be able to run faster than Bond.
Another possibility would be to simply play along. Bond could insist upon shaving himself, and remove the false beard in the privacy of a bathroom. Bond could then work very hard to pretend to learn how to impersonate himself. In order to train him to be Bond, Stamp's people would have to tell him a lot about their organization and sources. So this "play along" strategy had some appeal, in that it might yield very valuable intelligence benefits not only for the FBI, but also for the CIA and for Her Majesty's Secret Service.
But there was a problem.
Stamp had boasted. "We know where the real guy is." That boast was clearly wrong, since Stamp did not realize that the real Bond was only ten feet away. Yet Bond could not breathe easy. What Stamp probably meant was that his people were following Bond's trail. Suppose they were? And suppose they had tracked him to Minneapolis, Minnesota?
Suppose they told Stamp that Bond and Tipton arrived in Minneapolis less than 24 hours apart?
That would be too much of a coincidence for Stamp to ignore.
Bond had been his usual careful self in Vancouver, but he didn't think he was being tailed, and he made no deliberate effort to shake any tail. True, the crowd at the Vancouver airport would have given Bond a great deal of cover and would have made him hard to spot. But if there was a tail, wouldn't he have been watching the passengers board the Toronto flight, and wouldn't he have realized that Bond was not among them?
Maybe. And maybe he'd suspect that I had left the airport. Maybe he wondered whether I had actually boarded a different flight. It might take him quite a while, but if the tail is any good, he'll eventually figure out what happened. And when he reports to Stamp, I'm cooked.
Bond decided that his best option was to call for help, without making it look like he was calling for help.
But call who? He couldn't call Vandenberg. For all Bond knew, Vandenberg would be careless enough to blurt out, "Well, Bond, what did you find out?" And the game would be up.
He considered calling "Mr. Abercrombie" at "Universal Exports," which ought to put him in contact with M. But in order to get M, Bond would have to identify himself in code, which would be suspicious in itself. Add to that, M had a nasty habit of insisting upon being the first person to speak when he came on the line. If M started the conversation with a testy, "Double-Oh-Seven, you do know it is the middle of the night here, don't you?", the game would be up.
He knew a few other telephone numbers for "Universal Exports" by heart, but the personnel answering those calls were kept in the dark about almost everything. This wasn't a sanctioned, coded Secret Service operation, so Bond couldn't give them any coded messages that would be of any use or that would set off any alarms. He'd have to say straight out who he was, that he was in trouble, and that he needed help. And the game would be up.
Besides, if Stamp knows about two British Intelligence agents, he might know that Universal Exports is a front for British Intelligence.
Best of all would be to call Felix Leiter, but how? Leiter no doubt had a local contact telephone number in Minnesota, and Leiter was bright enough to play along and not to say anything stupid if Bond called him. But Bond had no idea what Felix Leiter's local telephone number was, or how he could get it.
But maybe, just maybe, there was one person he could call.
"Ah beg yo' pahdon, Mr. Stamp?" Bond began. "May Ah use yo' telephone? Ah can think of one appointment I simply must cancel rahght away."
"Use this phone right here." Stamp indicated the telephone on his desk. Bond got up from the couch, and promptly seated himself in front of the desk.
No privacy, naturally.
He turned the telephone toward himself, picked up the receiver, and began dialing.