Hence, SMERSH was using this operative to blackmail Vesper into helping them. This man had been captured by SMERSH and revealed information about Vesper under torture. (Her kidnapping was staged to lure Bond into Le Chiffre's clutches.) Before she met Bond, she had been romantically involved with a Polish RAF operative. Vesper has a terrible secret, however – she is a double agent working for the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) and worked with Bond only because she was ordered to lure him into a trap. After he is released from the hospital, they go on a holiday together and eventually become lovers. Vesper visits Bond every day in the hospital, and the two grow very close much to his own surprise, Bond develops genuine feelings for her, and even dreams of leaving the service and marrying her. Both are rescued after Le Chiffre is murdered by a SMERSH agent, but only after Le Chiffre has tortured Bond.

After Bond takes all of Le Chiffre's money in a high-stakes game of baccarat, Vesper is abducted by Le Chiffre's thugs, who also capture Bond when he tries to rescue her. She poses as a radio seller, working with secret agent Rene Mathis, and later as Bond's companion to infiltrate the casino in Royale-Les-Eaux, where Le Chiffre frequently gambles. She is lent to Bond, much to his irritation, to assist him in his mission to bankrupt Le Chiffre, the paymaster of a SMERSH-controlled trade union. Vesper works at MI6 headquarters as a personal assistant to the Head of Section S. In 1993, journalist Donald McCormick claimed that Fleming based Vesper on Polish agent Krystyna Skarbek, who was working for Special Operations Executive when he knew her.

The actual name for the drink (as well as its complete recipe) was mentioned on screen for the first time in the 2006 film adaptation of Casino Royale. The ' Vesper' became popular after the novel's publication.

In the novel, the character explains that she was born 'on a very stormy evening', and that her parents named her 'Vesper', Latin for 'evening' and Bond then gives her name to a cocktail he has recently invented. She was portrayed by Ursula Andress in the 1967 James Bond parody, which is only slightly based on the novel, and by Eva Green in the 2006 film adaptation. Vesper Lynd is a fictional character featured in Ian Fleming's 1953 James Bond novel Casino Royale.

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