Story - Cuba

Bond took a freight ship to Cuba, which seemed to take forever. His first port of call in Havana is the Raoul'd Cigar factory. As the girls who rolled the tobacco leaves on their thighs broke out in a mid-afternoon karoke break, Bond awakes the MI6 sleeper agent Raoul.

Bond learns that Zao has taken residence in a clinic on Los Organos island. He takes a pair of binoculars and a copy of "Birds of the West Indies" from Raoul's office and sets off in a 1957 Ford Fairlane 500 under the guise of an ornithologist.

After arriving at Raoul's recommendation, Hotel De Los Organos, Bond meets Mr Krug in reception - a violent and bad tempered South African. From his room, Bond sweeps the coastline with his binoculars and discovers armed guards are suspiciously escorting patients in the grounds of the Alvarez clinic.

Jinx emerges from the sea and catches Bond`s eye. The pair order drinks at the bar and exchange cover stories while they tease and flirt with each other. The pair enjoy a steamy night of passion in Bond's room, and she quietly leaves in the morning before Bond awakes.

Bond rushes to Krug's room after spotting Jinx on a jetty with several armed guards and a lot of official paperwork. He knocks Krug out cold, throws him into a wheelchair, and gets onboard the boat after posing as a porter with Krug's paperwork.

Inside the clinic, Bond creates a distraction by pushing Krug and the wheelchair down a stairwell while he ducks into a private room. He discovers a hidden switch on a wall mural and enters a room full of rotating mirrors and DNA models. This is the "Beauty Parlour" which Bond's superiors have recently learned of, although has not had official confirmation.

Zao is undergoing treatment at the facility to resequence his DNA and radically alter his appearance. Bond cuts the treatment short and unveils a half complete Zao, his skin albino white and the diamonds still embedded in his face. A blank canvas for a human. The pair fight tenaciously as the once pristine medical room is transformed into a war zone. Zao escapes after using a medic as a human shield, but Bond has managed to get some evidence - a bullet casing from a chain around Zao's neck.

Jinx was posing as a prospective patient of Dr. Alvarez when she shoots him and steals a back-up CD from his personal safe. Leaving no trace of her theft behind, she sets some C4 explosive to blow up the clinic in one minute's time. As she starts the countdown, alarms ring out from the fire caused by Bond and Zao's fight. She fails to warn Bond of the bomb as he chases after Zao towards to office. Zao smashes through the window and jumps to safety. Luckily, a desk shields Bond from most of the explosion, but the room is now on fire and there is seemingly no escape. Ever inventive, Bond straps a nitrogen canister to a trolly and blows a hole in the wall with the rocket-propelled explosion.

As Bond watches, Jinx runs after Zao who is attempting an escape in an ambulance helicopter. The pair exchange shots but fail to hit their targets. As Zao escapes, armed guards force Jinx to surrender. But before they can approach her, she does a perfect backdive, 200 feet into the sea below, before an anonymous ship picks her up and heads back to the Cuban mainland. Bond admires her guile, and discovers Zao's bullet pendant is hollow - and is full of diamonds.

Bond asks Raoul to inspect the diamonds in his office and they discover a microscopic GG logo on a facet of one of the diamonds. Raoul informs Bond of the new industrialist, Gustav Graves, who came from nowhere a year ago when he discovered a rice vein of diamonds in Iceland. Bond learns of Graves, the overnight success, who is also keen on space technology.