Feb
11
Monsieur Le Chiffre, is an agent for the Soviet assassination bureau
SMERSH, running a baccarat game at a French casino to raise needed
operational funds--namely, to recover SMERSH's money that he lost in a
failed attempt to establish a chain of brothels. Expert baccarat player
James Bond is assigned the job of beating Le Chiffre, in the hope that
the Russian agent's gambling debts will provoke SMERSH into killing
him. After hours of intensive play, Bond manages to beat Le Chiffre,
but only with extra money provided by Felix Leiter of the CIA, who is
in attendance as a covert observer. Bond has been provided with an
assistant, the beautiful but emotionally turbulent Vesper Lynd, who
unsurprisingly becomes his lover. But she is hiding a terrible secret
-- she is actually a Russian double agent, under orders to see Bond
does not escape Le Chiffre. With her unwilling connivance, Bond is
captured and tortured by Le Chiffre, but Le Chiffre is assassinated by
SMERSH. After Bond's recovery, during which he expresses an intention
to resign from the Service, he spends his convalescence with Vesper
Lynd, but becomes suspicious of her. Vesper commits suicide and her
body is discovered by Bond, who reports to his superiors, tersely: "The
bitch is dead now."
