(no subject)

[ymarkov]

Carbon Is Forever

By ERIC FELTEN

James Bond took a long pull at the cold, hard drink. He sat back in the deep-red leather chair and reached for the cigarette case in the pocket of his houndstooth suit. He scanned the late evening crowd for signs of the enemy; his eyes came to rest on a raven-haired woman with porcelain skin. Bond took a Morland cigarette (the one with a triple gold band) from the flat, light gunmetal case and wondered how dangerous the mission would be.

It had hardly been six hours since he was at the dismal book party for the new, authorized history of MI5 written by a Cambridge don. Why an intelligence service would even think to publish its secrets was a mystery he could never untangle. But it was there at the party, drinking some tepid excuse for champagne, when Bond got the puzzling message from his old friend Felix Leiter, the CIA agent who had his back on so many dangerous cases. Bond didn't know what to make of it. "James. Need your help," read the text. "How many feet over high tide for Thames River to flood London?"

More at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574475181433552914.html
(The whole Taste page is damn good this week, actually.)