For more than a year, the Secret Service agent James Bond has been involved in "Operation Bedlam": tracking down the private criminal organisation SPECTRE and its leader, Ernst Stavro Blofeld, after they had hijacked two nuclear devices in an attempt to blackmail the western world.[a] Convinced SPECTRE no longer exists, Bond is frustrated by his service's insistence that he continue the search and by his inability to find Blofeld. He mentally composes a letter of resignation for his superior, M.
While driving across northern France to Britain, Bond encounters a beautiful young woman named Contessa Teresa "Tracy" di Vicenzo. He subsequently meets her at a gaming table, where he saves her from dishonour by paying the gambling debt she is unable to cover. The next day Bond follows her and interrupts her attempted suicide, but they are captured by professional henchmen. They are taken to the offices of Marc-Ange Draco, head of the Unione Corse, the biggest European crime syndicate. Tracy is the only child of Draco, who believes the only way to save his daughter from further suicide attempts is for Bond to marry her. To facilitate this, he offers Bond a dowry of £1 million;[b] Bond refuses the offer but agrees to keep in contact with Tracy after she has medical assistance.
At Bond's request, Draco uses his contacts to establish that Blofeld is somewhere in Switzerland. Bond returns to England to be given another lead: the College of Arms in London has discovered that Blofeld has assumed the title and name of Comte Balthazar de Bleuville and, wanting formal confirmation of the title, has asked the College to declare him a count.
On the pretext that an inherited minor physical abnormality (a lack of earlobes) needs a personal confirmation, Bond impersonates a College of Arms representative, Sir Hilary Bray, to visit Blofeld's lair atop Piz Gloria, a fictional mountain in the Swiss Alps. He finally meets Blofeld, who has lost weight and undergone plastic surgery, partly to remove his earlobes, but also to disguise himself from the police and security services who are tracking him down.
Bond learns that Blofeld has apparently been curing a group of young British and Irish women of their allergies to food and livestock. In truth, Blofeld and his aide, Irma Bunt, have been brainwashing them into carrying biological warfare agents back to Britain and Ireland to destroy the agricultural economy, upon which post-Second World War Britain depends. Believing himself discovered, Bond escapes by ski from Piz Gloria, chased by SPECTRE operatives, some of whom he kills in the process; Blofeld sets off an avalanche, which narrowly misses Bond. Afterward, in a state of total exhaustion, he encounters Tracy. She is in the town at the base of the mountain after being told by her father that Bond may be in the vicinity. Bond is too weak to take on Blofeld's henchmen alone and she helps him escape to the airport. Smitten by the resourceful, headstrong woman, he proposes marriage and she accepts. Bond then returns to England and works on the plan to capture Blofeld and thwart his plot.
Helped by Draco's Unione Corse, Bond mounts an air assault against the clinic and Blofeld. The clinic is destroyed, but Blofeld makes off down a bobsled run and—pursued by Bond—he escapes. Bond flies to Germany where he marries Tracy. The two of them drive off on their honeymoon but, a few hours later, Blofeld and Bunt drive past firing a machine gun; Tracy is killed in the attack.
