"pattern of chance"

Towards the end of Moonraker, James Bond considers all the myriad little events which contributed to his saving London from atomic destruction by Drax's rocket:

All that would have come about [..] but for a whole pattern of tiny circumstances, a whole pattern of chance.

Coincidences, chance happenings, unexpected twists and turns... the crafting and weaving of all of these into a narrative is the whole of the novelist's art, as Fleming knows. As the remote deity above the Bondian universe which he brings into being on his gold-plated typewriter he could no doubt savour the paradox - what seems like mere chance to Bond is the result of Fleming's design. The London of Moonraker was always perfectly safe, just as Bond's aim at winning the love (or at least the body) of Gala Brand was doomed right from the start. What we have, or rather what the characters have, is the illusion of chance.

But Bond as a character is himself familiar with such illusions. Work though he does to fight his foes, he knows the danger that comes with a Double 0 number:

...it was his ambition to have as little as possible in his banking account when he was killed, as, when he was depressed, he knew he would be, before the statutory age of forty-five.

There is knowing and there is 'knowing'. Against this supposed 'certainty' we also have Bond's love of gambling, which crystalises a more chance-driven view of the universe. This is set out clearly early on in the first novel:

Bond had always been a gambler [..] He was amused by the impartiality of the roulette ball and of the playing-cards - and their eternal bias. He liked being an actor and a spectator [..] until it came to his own turn to say that vital 'yes' or 'no', generally on a fifty-fifty chance. (Casino Royale, Penguin, p. 42)

In the first three novels I think we see Fleming placing Bond in situations designed so that his main character gets to experience every possible kind of luck, good and bad, but also every possible basic outcome of every game - a win, a loss, or a draw - in other words every possible outcome that can be 'determined' by chance.

Casino Royale is a DRAW - he appears to win by gaining the love of Vesper only for her to reveal she is a traitor before killing herself; Live and Let Die is a WIN - not only does he see off Mr. Big but he attains his desire, the lovely Solitaire; Moonraker is a LOSS - London may be just as unruffled by atomic winds as it was at the start but Bond sees Gala Brand as someone "on her way to make love to somebody else. Someone who is not for you." That this is no mere 'turning down' from someone viewed as a mere potential conquest is affirmed by the unmistakable melancholy of the ending. Bond hasn't merely lost, he's lost something, someone... and is actually the poorer, emotionally speaking, at the story's end than he was at the beginning.

Bond's preoccupations are usually open to parody, and his personality (and that of his creator) painted as that of a misogynist - yet here we see him bordering, in that great way that only ostensibly light-hearted adventure stories can, on something philosophical - in the way that most of us actually experience. To complete our quotation:

All that would have come about [..] but for a whole pattern of tiny circumstances, a whole pattern of chance.

Whose pattern?

After closing the book, the question lingers.