- After an extra jiggly opening credits sequence, we find ourselves at a chess tournament in Venice.
- One of the chess players takes a sip of water and discovers a secret message at the bottom of the glass: "You are required at once."
- No problem. He checkmates his opponent in a matter of seconds and leaves the room.
- Aboard a yacht, a man armed with a machine gun escorts our chessmaster to a cabin below deck. Who knew chess was such serious business?
- Inside the cabin, a man petting a cat watches some Chinese fighting fish fight each other to the death. If PETA were around, they'd have bombed his ship by now.
- The chessmaster aka Kronsteen aka Number Five is summoned into the cabin.
- He announces that he has planned for SPECTRE to steal the Russians' new Lektor decoding machine. We don't know what a Lektor code is. Something to do with fava beans and chianti?
- A woman named Number Three (we'd hate to be the one named Number Two) says she's willing to cooperate with Number Five's plan.
- She'll provide a nice Russian girl to assist with the plan. But the girl won't know that she's in fact betraying Russia.
- Number Five believes that British Secret Service will unwittingly help, too, because they want to get their hands on the Lektor decoder.
- SPECTRE is hoping the Brits will deploy James Bond so that they can get revenge on him for killing one of their agents, Dr. No.