Timothy Dalton -"A Whisper of Hate"

“Another Time, Another Place”

The dark haired man with the cobalt blue eyes appeared to languish on the rock out in the Mexican wilderness. He was covered in dirt, fuel and God knows what else. He reached into his pocket; the action hurt and clasped a metallic object in his hand.
“Don’t you want to know why?”
The rasping question made the other man standing over him with a machete pause and frown. Franz Sanchez, himself in a similar condition to the other, hesitated.
The other produced the object, a lighter and showed the inscription to Sanchez.
To James, with love –Felix and Della.
Sanchez’s eyes widened with realisation. At what, the other could not decide, the recognition of the name or realisation of what he was about to do.
James Bond flicked the lighter on tossing it at Sanchez who immediately caught fire. The lighter’s powerful flame had been enough, not that Bond hung around to find out as he dived for cover. Dive was optimistic for he staggered on from rock to rock as behind him Sanchez wheeled screaming into the crashed lorry full of liquid cocaine that promptly exploded with all the subtlety of a nuclear bomb. There were several more convulsions before the fires settled and blazed furiously. Bond sat on a rock bowing his head. He took a deep breath. Thoughts flashed through his head…
…Della and Felix, happy at their wedding…
…Della’s body and Felix’s almost dead carcass…
…Sharkey hanging from a meat-hook…
…Licence revoked…
“This is not a country club, 007!”
Bond lifted his head, breath expelled, he felt he had achieved some sort of redemption. He got Sanchez, stopped his drug empire and he had…
Achieved peace?
“Hey, want a ride?”
Bond looked over to see a truck’s cab pull up inside of which Pam Bouvier leant out. He smiled at her and headed over.

**

Bill Tanner changed gears in the Saab 900 violently and cursed under his breath. There could be few reasons for driving north but there you go, when M told you to do something you do it even if it’s quicker to fly north. The car from Q Branch gave a grunt almost as it changed gears. Probably those stinger missiles behind the headlights, thought Tanner with a smile as his mind travelled back to M’s office.
SIS was in a state of flux, the new headquarters at Vauxhall was opening soon and with it a new change of face for SIS or MI6 as the press and public insisted on calling it. M was against the new SIS building for it ‘advertised SIS like a prostitute in Mayfair’ to the world at large. SIS’ current and longstanding building in Regent’s Park was much ‘plainer’ than Vauxhall would be.
“It’s been a month now since we know that this Sanchez man was killed,” M said smoking his pipe. He shared that with the former M, Sir Miles Messervy whom Tanner had served faithfully as he did this M –another former admiral. “Bond has not even attempted to sign back in.”
“Station MX says that a man matching Bond’s description left Mexico City about two days after Sanchez’s death with someone matching Pam Bouvier’s. The CIA say that she’s not made efforts either, sir.”
M snorted. “So, Bond’s on a jolly is he? Well, not on our payroll. Tanner, I want you to find him.”
“For what purpose sir?”
“What do you think?” M snapped. “To get him back. He’s our best man and I refuse to believe he’d go out on this Felix Leiter business.”
Some business, Tanner had thought, his best friend mauled by a shark Bond had gone rogue rather than try to do it officially. It had been a fraught time with the government of the day starting to lean on SIS, effecting further budgetary restrictions. At a closed session enquiry in Whitehall, Tanner was present when a minister suggested that ‘MI6 merge with MI5 and pool resources’. Something that prompted M to walk out and left Tanner somewhat red-faced.
“Welcome to Glencoe,” Tanner read as he blazed past a sign the car now amongst the rugged Scottish Highlands. Snow flecked the hillside that rolled high above him almost as if to crush him at their whim. The waters of Glen Coe itself were soon on his left and Tanner followed it through past the village and away from Loch Leven which stretched like a finger towards the horizon. He felt the chill even with the blower on blaming Swedish technology. After an hour of driving through the highlands he turned the car stopping right in the middle of an open gateway. The gate sat between two brick posts upon which sat large bronze eagles with wings unfurled. Tanner got out shivering in the breeze. Under each eagle was a coat of arms with the legend SKYFALL in gothic text. Tanner looked down the sloping gravel track across brooding brown and green countryside to a large, gothic, imposing building that seemed like something out of Hound of the Baskervilles.
“Skyfall,” Tanner breathed his breath coming as a small puff of cloud. He went to the Saab driving it down into the grounds feeling as if he were intruding onto something quite personal. No one had seen Bond in some time. Some even thought he was dead. Tanner reached the end of the driveway stepping out. He scanned the horizon then went to the door pulling on the old doorbell that sent Big Ben-esque chimes ringing throughout the house. When he received no answer he stepped back.
“James!” his cry echoed over the highlands. “It’s me, Bill!”
There was a thunderous silence that matched the growing darkness to the west with its faint rumble of thunder.
Tanner flinched as two shotgun blasts erupted from sight unseen blasting gravel up either side of his feet. He held his hands up: “You got me!”
“Aye, I wouldn’t be so sure of that laddie,” a voice called. Tanner turned to see a man with a short white beard emerge from behind the corner of the west wing. A shotgun remained trained on Tanner as he approached. “Why would ye be after Master James?”
“He’s needed.”
“By whom?” the gaze was unflinching which made Tanner nervous. Old or not this man could blast him in two without a thought.
“I…well…his boss in London. My name’s Tanner, Bill Tanner.”
The old man lowered his gun a fraction. “Come with me.”
He was led out across the heath past Skyfall’s west wing but even then the house did not lose its gothic edge. Away from the house was a lake of moderate size though Tanner had seen smaller in the Lake District. On the shoreline there was a figure hammering away at a small wooden dinghy upturned and resting on stocks.
“Master James, ye have a visitor!”
Closing in Tanner barley recognised Bond. The agents eyes were dull, his face covered with a thick black beard and his hair windswept. He had even gained some pounds. “James, my God.”
“It’s alright Kincade, I know him. He’s a friend. Why don’t you get some brandy?”
“Aye,” Kincade put the shotgun over one arm then said to Tanner, “he always be talking to me like I’m his bleedin’ dogsbody.”
Tanner and Bond were left alone. Bond put his hammer down standing with a smile. “Bill.”
They shook hands warmly. Friends since the old days there were few friendships in this world that lasted so long. “He wants you James.”
Bond chuckled. “Is that so? And why does M want me back?”
“Because you’re…well, you’re needed you stupid bastard,” Tanner said seriously. Bond sat on a stool he had brought out earlier. “Sanchez was months ago and you just vanish!”
“I resigned,” Bond said edgily. “I resigned damnit Bill! I’m no longer on Her Majesty’s service, secret or otherwise.”
Not strictly true, to all intents and purposes Bond remained on the Navy’s Reserve List. “Where did you go James?”
Bond did not meet Tanner’s gaze instead looking out over the lake. “Most places. I hung around with Pam Bouvier for a time then she got recalled to Langley and I kept going solo. I revisited my past.”
“Sounds charming,” Tanner saw Kincaide coming over from the house. “Like this place? I knew you came from Scotland but imagined it to be…”
“Quainter?” Bond laughed. “This is as charming as it gets. Kincaide was like a father after my parents died, him and Hannes Oberhauser did their bit to turn me into who I am.”
Kincaide reached them handing glasses to either. Tanner noted the label on a bottle that Kincaide had in his gamesman’s jacket pocket. Glencoe Malt 1952. “Storm’s a coming, Master James.”
Bond nodded. “Indeed, Kincade. We’ll leave the boat here. Let’s go into the house.”
The house was no less different to its exterior, huge haunting rooms largely cloaked in darkness that seemed to stretch into eternity. Passing into a lounge of sorts Tanner pointed. “Your father?”
Bond nodded at a portrait over the fireplace of a man in a World War One captain’s uniform. “Yes, Andrew Bond.”
“There were few men I’m prouder to have called a friend,” declared Kincade then tipped his cap. “I’ll be working in the cellar, Master James if you need me.”
“Thank you, Kincade.”
The two men settled into chairs either side of the fireplace. Thunder broke outside accompanied with flashes of fork lightning.
“James, the old man needs you back. He’s fighting a rearguard against the government not to mention the fact that even the Russians are edging us out despite the fact they’re on the way out. The Double O Section is now down to two and it’s looking grim…”
“Two?” Bond remembered when it was that low. There had not always been many 00’s and never coded higher than eleven in the time he was there. “Who?”
“009 and 006.”
“Simmons and Trevelyan,” Bond murmured. “What about Q Branch?”
“Slightly better but that won’t last.”
“I noticed you’ve got the Saab.”
“Borrowing it,” Tanner grinned then that faded. “Come back, James. It’s not on to come and beg like this but even if you have a word with M and leave…I’ll rather have that.”
Thunder boomed overhead making the chandelier sway, the flames in the fireplace to weave as if driven by an evil spirit. Bond downed his brandy staring into the fire.
“I left under less than ideal circumstances, Bill. I did it because my friend had been attacked and there was no one willing to help. I got Q into trouble and I’d imagine Moneypenny too. My time at the service is over.”
“I didn’t drive up the UK just for this,” Tanner stood throwing his glass into the fireplace where it popped. “Look…I’m going home. I’ll find a hotel somewhere en route.”
“Nonsense, you’re staying here,” Bond stood and put a hand on Tanner’s shoulder. “We’ll go down in the morning.”
Tanner smiled. “Fantastic.”
“Besides, I’ve been driven by you before and I wouldn’t want that again!”
In the morning Bond left Kincade with some thankful words and climbed into the driver’s seat of the Saab 900 which promptly drove on up towards the gate. Kincade watched them go and sighed.
Another Bond heading off into the mists.
He turned and headed into the house.

**

Sir Hilary Bray OBE (the author formerly known as)
Presents a Reluctant Enterprise in association with EON

Timothy Dalton as Ian Fleming’s James Bond 007 in

“A Whisper of Hate”

Based upon, slightly inspired by Goldeneye (1995)

“With”- Michael Kitchen (Bill Tanner), Caroline Bliss (Ms Moneypenny), Sean Bean (Alec Trevelyan, 006), Gottfried John (General Ouromov) and Robert Brown as M

For better or worse, likely worst.

---

CHAPTER ONE

“Second Chance”

James Bond stepped from the Circle Line train at Westminster Station along with a handful of people. It was late at night and the air crisp, even down here on the ‘cut and cover’ line. Bond followed the other passengers out to the stairs that ran up to the surface. Turning left at the top he reached a door –one of many on the network that seemed part of the wall with no obvious means of opening- and slipped inside as deftly as a cat burglar. Closing the door behind him he waited to hear if anyone would come then walked off as lights flickered on overhead, activated by his motion. The dark, dusty walls were lined by a thick collection of vein like cables and wires. He followed the tunnel along then down a few flights of steps before emerging into a deserted lobby area between abandoned platforms. Posters from the seventies dotted the walls as well as by the platform entrance a route map of the Northern Line which sprawled across the paper like a spider’s web.
Vauxhall Cross lay between the stations of Elephant & Castle and Kennington on the southern branch of the High Barnet Line. Like some stations it had become surplus to requirements largely because of the nearness of both Kennington and Oval to the south. Also its presence to the new SIS headquarters did not help.
Bond stood there for a moment on the northbound platform listening to the faint roar of passing trains (re-routed in a separate tunnel past Vauxhall Cross) and the ghostly draught echo in the tunnels.
“They say only dead agents come to this place.”
Bond did not turn. “Or those going to die.”
Now he did and saw M standing there, hands in the pockets of his long-coat eyes shadowed by the trilby he wore. “I came back like I was asked.”
“The last time we saw each other it was Hemingway’s House…”
“A long time ago sir,” Bond said and walked up to his master. “Sir, I’m back.”
“Not quite, Bond,” the lack of Bond’s code-number was slightly unsettling reinforcing the fact he had his licence to kill revoked all that time ago in Florida. “Though I need you back, there are certain rules and regulations that must be observed, understood?”
Bond stood to attention slowly. “Sir.”
M walked around Bond in a slow march. “You went rogue, Bond and in that time you managed to derail one of the biggest drug operations that there has ever been. You killed several people –without your licence to do so- you used government property for your own purposes and then vanish afterwards…”
“Sir.”
“I’m speaking!” M snapped stopping behind Bond he peered at the agent. “My predecessor remarked to me upon your…free spirit, shall we say and I can add that I am not amused. There are those in the government who think you should be pushed away and never heard from again. Hence this meeting here.”
Bond turned his head smiling grimly. “Then fire me, sir and I can live my life.”
“Not so fast. We need you. 006 has vanished in Russia, we have no idea why or how. He was undercover, yes, to investigate the Russians’ latest chemical warfare program but there was minimal risk. The plan was airtight.”
Bond had a picture of a fair haired man, tall and once in the SAS before joining the SIS as a Double-O. “But 006 is missing sir, we can assume he’s been caught.”
“This is why you’re back. You have a battery of tests the boffins want you to do and then I’m sending you out East.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, don’t stand there, follow me.”

**

Bill Tanner watched through the one-way glass Bond run on a treadmill as around him firecrackers went off. Next to Tanner a technician typed away on a computer keyboard his attention riveted to the readout on his squat monitor.
“Is all this necessary?” Tanner asked.
“It’s designed to reflect an agent’s scenario.”
“It’s bloody stupid,” Tanner said then saw M slip into the room. “Sir, James is doing alright.”
“Thank you for your appraisal Chief of Staff,” M said pulling out a pipe. The technician coughed tightly. M glanced at a sign on the wall proclaiming –NO SMOKING!- and sighed. “Tanner, how long has he been doing this?”
“About six minutes now, sir,” Tanner said indicating to Bond. Bond’s face was strained, pinched as the firecrackers continued to explode. The treadmill was sliding faster beneath him.
“Let’s finish this particular exercise,” M ordered.
The technician typed in a command –WATERLOO- that prompted a squawk from the intercom on the wall. The firecrackers stopped going off as a doorway opened away to Bond’s right. A masked gunman appeared. Bond vaulted over the front of the treadmill tucking into a roll coming up with a Walther PPK in his sweaty hands. He fired off three shots then ran past the treadmill. The gunman had gone down as another doorway opened and two men rushed in arms with clubs. Bond ducked the first attacker’s blows lashing out with the side of his palm at the exposed neck before crashing his right foot into the groin of the second. Grabbing hold of the second man’s wrists he wrenched him around into the first and sent both reeling away. Bond had lost his PPK in the struggle and thus backed up against the wall where the second doorway had been closed.
“That’s it, end it,” M snapped.
M and Tanner went into a separate room to wait for Bond who showed up a minute after this tired and sweaty. As Bond slumped into a chair M finally lit his pipe. There was a moment or two as M puffed away thoughtfully. He at least shared this with the late Sir Miles Messervy.
“You passed all your tests including your psychological one, Bond,” said M finally. “Your weapons test was especially good.”
“I shot plenty of game up north,” Bond said hollowly. He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his sweater. “Am I back?”
“Welcome to the fold, 007. Tanner will talk to you about Operation Goldeneye. Good luck.”
At that, M departed. Tanner wrinkled his nose. “As you smell like the back end of a sewer I’ll wait for you at my office. You know where it is in the new place?”
“I’ll find it.”
“Good. See you in half an hour.”
Bond rolled his eyes to heaven.
“Welcome back indeed.”

A bridge between LTK and GE? Interesting! Can't wait to read the whole thing. :)

coco1997 wrote:

A bridge between LTK and GE? Interesting! Can't wait to read the whole thing. :)

thanks. It's something rattling around since the old MI6. We'll see if inspiration continues.

Hilly wrote:

We'll see if inspiration continues.

Hopefully it does. I've always wanted to see this type of story done properly.

I have a vague idea, a re-working of GE to a certain extent and my usual meddling in others. Things like Onatopp might be out (I don't see that in a Dalton 3rd film) but we'll see come the weekend. Days off from work usually promt a spilling of imagination :)

Hilly wrote:

I have a vague idea, a re-working of GE to a certain extent and my usual meddling in others. Things like Onatopp might be out (I don't see that in a Dalton 3rd film) but we'll see come the weekend. Days off from work usually promt a spilling of imagination :)

So it's essentially a re-imagining of GE, suited to Dalton?

coco1997 wrote:

Hilly wrote:

I have a vague idea, a re-working of GE to a certain extent and my usual meddling in others. Things like Onatopp might be out (I don't see that in a Dalton 3rd film) but we'll see come the weekend. Days off from work usually promt a spilling of imagination :)

So it's essentially a re-imagining of GE, suited to Dalton?

More or less. I'm thinking it more of the third Dalton film that wasn't which more or less was Goldeneye to a certain degree. This one with a John Barry soundtrack.

Man can dream.

Hilly wrote:

More or less. I'm thinking it more of the third Dalton film that wasn't which more or less was Goldeneye to a certain degree. This one with a John Barry soundtrack.

Man can dream.

Excellent. 8)

Wonderful Hilly. Keep writing. :D

groucho070 wrote:

Wonderful Hilly. Keep writing. :D

thanks groucho, glad ye liked.

Funnily, I kicked on with the second chapter today. It's still sort of forming in my mind and I've changed certain details. Call it my way of trying to understand a plot (I understand the actual GE plot, just mean the story's). I apologise for the geography.

---

CHAPTER TWO

“Operation GOLDENEYE”

As the British Airways Boeing 747-400 droned eastwards somewhere over the Baltic, James Bond sat at the bar on the upper deck sipping his martini alone. He went over the operation in his mind from that meeting in the higher echelons of the new SIS HQ on the banks of the Thames at Vauxhall.
Tanner’s office remained a cramped affair but as opposed to the Regent’s Park he now overlooked the rail station at Vauxhall out the back of SIS HQ. It had started to rain, large splotches of wet on the darkened windows. Tanner had lit a cigarette pushing a file across to Bond. Bond tore the FOR YOUR EYES ONLY strip taking first out a picture of 006 –Alec Trevalyan. Fair haired, slightly arrogant with the whiff of Eastern Europe about him.
“Alec came originally from Russia,” Bond remarked.
“Yes, parents knew Stalin or so the story goes. Alec was born in the early 60s but by then his father had done enough work for the NKVD, knew too much and got casted out by the new guard under Khruschev. Parents defected in Bratislava.”
Bond nodded remembering his own defection affair in Bratislava, remembering how in the end it was nothing but a ruse. “We took them on,” Tanner continued, “worked for us for a little while until recently. Think they’re in the Cotswolds somewhere, poor bastards.”
The next picture in the folder was a Russian general with the traditional wide brimmed hat that seemed twice the size it needed to be. The man had an arrogant air but much more purposely so than Alec’s. His chest was adorned with ribbons, most from the war. Bond recognised him all the same.
“Sergei Antonoyvch Ouromov. Was a teen when the war started, about seventy-two or so now. Rose through the ranks to head the Biological and Chemical Warfare Division.”
“He’ll be where you are going,” Tanner stood going to a wall map of Eastern Europe by the window. Bond had a map of his own in the folder as well as pictures as a dam in frozen surroundings. Tanner tapped Moscow then drew a finger out towards the Urals. “The Amasova Dam about fifty miles southwest of Svedlovsk. The facility in question is at the foot of the dam on the, er, dry-side. We have reason to believe the Russians have increased their BCW capabilities in recent years and are preparing something special if the collapse of the USSR goes awry.”
“We’re expecting it not to?” Bond said grimly. He had been out of the loop far too long, as the Americans would say, he had not seen intelligence reports since before the Sanchez affair.
“It should happen with chaos, countries going independent and whatnot, but there’s a chance it might not –civil war, riots, mass murder…,” Tanner shrugged returning to his seat. “You really have been away haven’t you?”
Bond did not answer collecting the British Airways tickets that fell out of the folder.
“Your contact in Moscow will have the other half of the phrase you see in the folder, memorise it and do your best.”
“Do your best? Is that the latest in our briefing lines?”
Tanner smiled. “James, things have changed.”
“Not for me they haven’t.”
“Ladies and gentlemen, we shall shortly be arriving at Sheremetyevo International. The local time is 1221pm with a local temperature of minus ten degrees Celsius. It’s dry with chance of shower later. We thank you for travelling with British Airways…”
Bond tuned the rest out and fifteen minutes later skirted customs with his usual effort. He knew that in whatever hotel he based himself the KGB or local police would check his bags after he left for his outing and actually tidy his items up better than he had in his Chelsea flat that morning. It was cold as he edged out into the open wrapping his old Cambridge scarf around his neck and clasping the handle of his holdall tightly. He scanned the sweeping apron before Sheremetyevo-2 for someone and zeroed in on a white man reading a Russian edition of USA Today. Bond slowly walked up to him.
In Russian he said quite crisply: “They say in Russia that the bear either hunts you or…”
“…Eats you for breakfast and desert later,” the man’s accent was American Midwest but the Russian was flawless (Georgian dialect, Bond thought). In English the American drawled. “Don’t you just hate these phrases? You must be…hey, what’s the big idea!?”
Bond had quietly drawn his PPK from within the folds of his coat and jammed it into the man’s ribs somewhere under the layers of coat and sweater that he wore whilst using the holdall as cover. Casually Bond glanced about. “Not so fast. Though much is taken, much abides; and though. We are not now that strength which in old days. Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts…”
The other gave him a sharp look and said in English: “Made weak in time and fate, but strong in will: to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield.”
Bond slowly withdrew the gun. “Good man.”
“That was the code Felix Leiter arranged when he was due to come out to Moscow last month. How’d you know?”
“You don’t get this far without knowing a few things. Where is Felix?”
“Getting his latest upgrade on legs,” the other snorted. “You should see these things, like the real thing.”
Bond nodded. After Bond returned from Mexico he had made discreet enquiries and found that Felix was getting false legs and would carry on in CIA if he could. Not much had changed since Douglas Bader got his in the 1930’s. “Bond, James Bond.”
“Jack Wade, Jimbo…”
“Never call me Jimbo. James will do.”
“Stiff-arsed Brit, hey?”
“Briton, yes.” Bond studied the American. Tall, strong build with a slight podge or maybe that was the layers he was wearing. He seemed much more bracing than anyone else Bond had met recently from America. “We need to get moving, Jack.”
“No problem, follow me.”
Wade had what turned out to be from the US Embassy’s motorpool –a Ford Explorer with diplomatic plates. Getting in Bond said, “Could you not get something less noticeable?”
“I figured you wouldn’t be in Moscow long, Jim…er, James.”
They drove on into the afternoon traffic. “I need to get out to Amasova Dam as soon as possible.”
“There’s a small airfield outside of Moscow with regional flights, Khodynka. It’s kind of hairy but it’ll get you to Svedlovsk in one flight. Once there, well it’s up to you. I’m just the middle guy.”
“Indeed. We’ll base ourselves in Moscow, if anything goes wrong…”
“I know the drill, I’ve done enough of this kind of thing in West Berlin and with you Limeys.”
They drove on for a couple of hours to an airfield that resembled an old WWII airbase in England. A small control tower and building with a slight array of dozen-seater planes on the tarmac under drifting snow. Bond waited as Wade went to talk to someone then came back with a ticket for a flight out east in an hour. They waited in silence in the explorer with Bond pondering the apparent ease of travelling in the USSR, then Bond boarded a Tupolev Tu134 in Aeroflot markings. The take-off was hair-raising for all six passengers aside from Bond as the plane rattled down the runway and clawed its way through the snow layer before levelling out. The fair haired stewardess came to Bond last as she walked up the central aisle.
“You are quite comfortable, Mr Bond?”
He looked from the window to her, admiring the shape he saw and smiling. “Yes, thank you.”
He looked after her as she went to sit in her jumpseat next to a small galley type area and picked up a book. Bond glanced back to the window seeing nothing but flakes and a distant dam in the Urals.

---

CHAPTER THREE

“Of all the joints…”

The private marching back and forth across Amasova Dam’s eastern perimeter gate was bored; such was life in the Soviet Union. As befitting its Ural location, Svedlovsk was murderously cold today –no higher than -15C and with it his hopes of an early finish.
His hopes would be realised just not in the way he had wanted. A hand crashed into his neck as he reached the shadowed corner of the perimeter gate and crumpled like a sack of potatoes.
James Bond helped the body down then dragged it to the edge of the dam where he frisked the uniform for keys. Finding them he emptied the AK-47 of its magazines and tossed them over the side. Bond was dressed completely in black, besides the PPK strapped to his left thigh and small pouch on the right he carried nothing. Opening the gate he slipped inside ducking under the dirt covered CCTV camera that sat on the gates edge. He reached up pulling the wire out. Now he was off at a canter running down the roadway that crossed the Amasova dam. When it was built in the 1950s the dam provided the perfect excuse for the Svedlovsk Communist Party to parade their members in celebration down the dam. Since then it had also provided a neat ‘dropping off’ point for enemies.
Bond’s heart thudded in his ears as he ran. He came to a ragged stop in the middle of the dam, roughly the middle where the ground was stained with God knows what and various exultations in Russian told him not to jump or linger. Bond reached down to his ankles tearing a strip of Velcro from the left trouser he proceeded to Velcro his trousers together at the ankles. Shuffling forward he pulled from the pouch a line of very fine wire that he hooked into his Velcro strip and through to the ground. He tired the end in the ground round a stanchion then simply stepped off the edge.
One did not get far in the world of espionage if one was not occasionally scared. War veterans maintain that you are not quite right if you were never scared and for a brief moment as he stepped off into oblivion James Bond felt a murmur of fear. Then he was sailing through the air past the grey, water stained front of the dam. Soon he would feel the jerk of the wire holding him but…
…there, the wire on the dam despite its thinness jerked and held fast. Bond by now had travelled virtually all the way down to near the Archangel facility’s rectangular top. As he neared he was in danger of being whizzed up into the air like a spinning top. From his pouch he procured a spike that he attached to his PPK and fired it into the roof. A mechanism activated drawing him towards the roof. Down near it he detached himself and took a breath. He had landed on the toilet block of the building which was unisex and so he had no idea when opening a roof tile would he disturb some juggernaut of a woman or weasel of a man.
Neither.
Bond dropped into a cubicle whose condition would’ve made some of the Marble Arch subway tunnels in London seem like the Palace of Versailles. As he went about putting his descent gear away the toilet door opened, first letting in the neat smell of disinfectant and then a bearded man in a white cloak over olive green army uniform. Bond instantly lashed his right foot up into the man’s face crashing him into the doorframe. Bond grabbed at him hauling him into the bathroom and throwing him into a cubicle. The man had been knocked out in Bond’s initial attack but Bond took the time to gag him and tie him to the cistern, arms above his head.
Moving to the door Bond paused, there was no sound beyond that of a distant hum of machinery. From what he knew of the facility it had always been involved in Biological and Chemical Warfare development. The dam helped provide power as well as somewhere to hide in plain sight.
“Time to look round,” Bond murmured setting off into the corridor. The place was dark with no natural light seeping in. Bond felt he was under the dam rather than beside it. Finding the Russian plans out would not be too hard, he felt. In somewhere dedicated to BW/CW it would be fairly easy. He reached a door towards the end reading ‘cloakroom’ in Cyrillic and slipped inside. A gamble paid off for there was no one in. Bond took an olive-green army coat off a rack and slid it over his black outfit completing this with a white overcoat. Hopefully he would pass himself off adequately as a scientist. He walked out calmly and quietly. After a while he reached stairs that took him down two levels to a corridor with slanting windows. The windows overlooked a cargo bay of sorts. At the far side were a dozen or so missiles that looked to be of a type from twenty years ago. Each bore Russian inscriptions. To the right on several wheeled cages were small canisters shaped like a rugby ball –about six canisters to each cage. The gas, Bond thought, or whatever the Hell it was. Nodding grimly Bond began to turn when the cold muzzle of a gun pressed against his right ear and a voice in Russian declared: “It’s best if you don’t move or I’ll blow a hole clean through your head.”
Bond replied in Russian: “I think you have the wrong man.”
Bond slowly turned and saw from the shadows Alec Trevelyan. Keeping to Russian Alec remarked, “What the bloody hell are you doing here?”
“Sightseeing,” Bond snapped. “You haven’t reported in for days.”
“I went deep cover, I thought London knew.”
Bond could see that Alec was none the wiser to Bond’s simmering anger. The two had never been what someone might call friends but they had had a respect for the other once. “They didn’t, come on, we best get a move on. I need to find out what the Russians are up to.”
“I can tell you that. They’re getting ready to use their missiles on the neighbouring countries when the collapse starts. Missiles at Belgrade, Zagreb, Prague etc.”
Bond looked back at the missiles. They were short range so the likes of Paris, Amsterdam and even London were out of the range. Maybe if they launched from East Berlin it wouldn’t be a problem. “I need to get pictures and have a closer look.”
Alec seemed hesitant but followed Bond down into the cargo bay. Their footsteps echoed in the bay which Bond imagined opened onto a runway or some such away from the dam. Using his covert camera he was able to snap several pictures of the canisters and the missiles. He then pulled his watch off and adjusted the time. The display flashed in red the digits -06:00.
“Time to go with a bang,” he murmured not seeing that Alec was watching him from the floor.
“Closing time, hey James?” he said cheerfully.
Bond did not respond instead slipping between the missiles, setting about putting the watch down. He looked up wondering if all the missiles would go-
“Come out my friend, if you please!”
Bond froze, one hand still on the watch. The voice spoke flawless English with a Russian accent. He did not move.
“I do not have all day. You are surrounded, comrade.”
Bond drew his PPK and crept forward, still in the shadow of a missile he saw Trevelyan on his knees with a man in a general’s uniform aiming his own PPK at his head. Bond recognised the general: Ouromov. Behind and around him stood about two dozen soldiers wielding a mixture of semi-automatic weapons. Maybe Ouromov saw him for he shouted: “Commander Bond, if you please!”
Bond ducked back frowning. How did he know?
He shouted in Russian: “I have a prior appointment, General!”
“I do not have time for this! I will count to five and then…well, you shall see.”
“Hurry James and set the damn fuse!” Trevelyan shouted earning him a cuff across his face.
Bond returned to the watch twisting a dial. The digits now read 03:00.
“One…”
Bond looked about as the digits began to tick down. He took off at a sprint to his left emerging from the missile racks behind a canister trolley.
“Three…,” Ourmov had counted to two as Bond ran. He spoke curiously as the trolley began to move out towards the rear of the cargo bay. As he moved guns followed Bond’s progress. “Four…”
Bond crept sweat sheening his brow.
“Come on James!” Trevelyan yelled prompting Ouromov to shoot him.
“Five.”
Bond gritted his teeth only glimpsing Alec’s fallen body through the slats of the trolley. Ouromov lifted the captured PPK wagging it. “You can’t win, Bond.”
“Never tell me the odds,” Bond grunted. He shoved the trolley away leaving him exposed then he levelled his gun off. Firing once he hit a soldier in the head from a range of ten feet then he double-tapped the trolley he had just pushed causing several of the canisters to explode showering the majority of those nearby with liquid gas. There were screams; shots went off going wild as all the while Bond took off. He grabbed the AK-47 from the soldier and leapt for a conveyor belt that went up into the rear. He fired off half a chamber causing several more of the trolleys to explode their contents.
Bond emerged into the open, cold and frigid open. Dropping the AK-47 he began to run as behind him all Hell broke loose.

---

Again, nice one Hilly. Just finished reading, nice changes from GE (especially some silly lines like "forgot to knock" urgh!!!).

Thanks Groucho. I'm conscious of following GE to a point. It's never quite been a favourite of mine but the pondering of a Dalton style GE fires the imagination to a point.

Dammit, I was supposed to be getting e-mail notifications whenever you posted in this topic but they stopped coming for some reason. Need to catch up on the last few chapters!

coco1997 wrote:

Dammit, I was supposed to be getting e-mail notifications whenever you posted in this topic but they stopped coming for some reason. Need to catch up on the last few chapters!

no worries Coco. I think the site's been acting up of late. I have sparse net at the moment so plenty of time for you to catch up.

Finally got caught up with this. Fine job so far. Looking forward to the next chapter.

coco1997 wrote:

Finally got caught up with this. Fine job so far. Looking forward to the next chapter.

Most kind. I've four chapters done but will get them at the end of the week when I have regular internet. I fear I've found direction but it might not be all that, :) I doubt it'd have been like this with Dalton but I've not hit my stride like this since the old days on MI6.

Hilly wrote:

I doubt it'd have been like this with Dalton but I've not hit my stride like this since the old days on MI6.

I prefer it that way. I don't think I'd have found this story as interesting if you had just replaced Brosnan with Dalton and kept the rest relatively the same. I'm looking forward to seeing what direction you take it. :D

Any idea when we can expect an update, Hilly?

EDIT: Just noticed you said you'd have some more up at the end of the week. :oops:

coco1997 wrote:

Any idea when we can expect an update, Hilly?

EDIT: Just noticed you said you'd have some more up at the end of the week. :oops:

No worries. I've I think 7 chapters to upload, so I'll double-bill a couple and see what goes down :)

As for direction, strewth...it's gone totally south in some respects, ha. Oddly I can picture Dalton better than I could when I had (I say had) Sam Neill or Lazenby or even the WWII Bonds that I did.

Looking forward to it!

coco1997 wrote:

Looking forward to it!

Here we go. Now bear with me...Chapters 4 to 10 are coming. Such was my rate of knots on this on my week away down south I forgot what happened so to see we're still at Archangel and Svedlovsk when I left...bemused.

I found myself using Koskov Escapes/Hercules Take Off from the Living Daylights soundtrack a lot funnily enough

---

DOUBLE-BILL

--

CHAPTER FOUR

“Breakout”

Snowflakes whirled around Bond as he took off across the icy plateau that jutted from behind the facility away from the dam. Alarms began to sound, voices in Russian on the loudspeaker urged Bond to be caught.
No one reacted to Bond running. Still in his scientist’s coat and army jacket he might well have been one of them. He came to a stop behind a bowser truck sat on the edge of an airfield. Taking his white coat off he peered around taking stock in his surroundings. Ahead of him was the airfield of the facility taking up much of the plateau. Away from and beneath the plateau was the surging Amasova River that was draining via the dam’s base further away into the Urals away from Svedlovsk. On the apron sat a Soviet Hercules transport aircraft with its rear access ramp down. Bond nodded to himself recalling the time at an airbase in Afghanistan he had flown a Hercules. Seemed his life had a habit of repeating certain habits.
There was a shout from behind him; soldiers were swarming up out of the conveyer belt that Bond had used as his escape from below. “Time to get out,” he said and stood breaking into a flat out run. His arms pumped through the air his breath coming out in sudden puffs in the cold. Without pause he was up the ramp of the Hercules and past a startled air crew loading a T-54 tank. He only broke his stride when reaching the cockpit and jumping into the pilots seat. He heard the commotion of angry Russian voices and clattering of feet but he focused on getting airborne. By his watch he had probably taken ninety seconds to get this far. Time was short when a bomb was ticking.
With a muttered curse Bond threw levers forward feeling the levers vibrate under his clenched hand as the engines built to full pitch. Blessedly, the Herc’ began to roll forward powered by its four Merlin engines. It gathered pace roaring down the runway. Around fifty to a hundred feet beyond the end of the runway lay the edge of the plateau and beyond that, certain doom.
Bond grunted as two meaty hands clamped down around his throat and began to haul him up out of the seat. Considering he had not strapped himself in this action resulted in him jerking up almost to a standing position. A voice in Russian behind him cursed Bond continuously. Bond tried swinging his body left to right and back whilst his vision started to blur. He could just make out the end of the runway ahead of them. A Hercules would require its namesake’s strength to rescue itself from a nosedive.
Behind the Hercules the facility exploded with a thunderous sound as Bond’s bomb went off. The explosion was helped by the warheads in the facility going off. The entire building seemed to lift before settling into a growing crater below it.
On the plane the shockwave through the ground served to break the assailant’s grip. Bond used this moment to drive an elbow into the Russian then grabbed his head smashing it down into the control levers. Bond dropped back into the pilot’s seat as the Hercules passed off the edge of the plateau. Bond had a sight of surging rapids far below before he wrestled with the steering yoke. Alarms shrieked in the cockpit deafening him. He shook as the plane shook twice as hard.
After what seemed an age the nose of the Hercules began to lift. For a plane of its size the Herc’ proved quite agile as it bounced upwards and away from Amadova. Bond felt quite relieved though it would not last. He banked the plane to see the conflagration consuming the facility below then aimed west for Moscow. Putting the plane on autopilot he went aft to check on the occupants. There was no one else on the plane but for the man who had attacked Bond. The crew must have bailed as the plane went over the edge. Either way Bond had no idea and did not care. Going back to the cockpit he bound and gag the inert Russian to the co-pilots chair. Bond then checked his fuel and found he had enough for Moscow if not further.
He thought about Wade in Moscow. There had been no need for him to hook up with the man once he got back into Moscow. Bond had to deal with the aftermath of this mission.
“To Hell with Wade,” Bond said sitting in the pilot’s seat, eyes staring flintily into the gathering gloom ahead.

CHAPTER FIVE

“Brief Respite”
British Embassy, Moscow.
Bond had never seen the point of staying in the embassy whenever he had been this far east. The place was as bugged as anywhere else in Russia. One could include East and West Berlin in that estimation. Still, orders were orders and he arrived at the ambassador’s dinner dressed in a smartly cut tuxedo. It had been a few days since the Archangel mission and he had laid low as the aftermath rumbled out. Near as he could tell, the facility had been completely destroyed putting pay to any chemical and biological attack by Russia on its breakaway republics.
Bond had his gaze on an attractive young woman from the embassy’s staff when he heard a voice at his elbow.
“Jimbo.”
Bond looked at Jack Wade with narrowed eyes. “Hello Jack.”
“Nice job with the Hercules. I understand the guy on the plane was found by Russian security. Said you flew better than Aeroflot.”
“Quite.”
“Ouromov made it out.”
Bond was lifting his glass of martini to his lips when Wade said this, his grip on the glass strengthened. “What?”
“Surfaced at a Politburo meeting this morning. Got a bit of facial burns, broken left arm and grazings but he made it all the same, yeah.”
Bond saw the British ambassador pass by with his American counterpart. “How did you get in here?”
“I have my uses,” Wade remarked over a glass of bourbon. He looked ill at ease in a tuxedo. Like a second rate opera singer. “He told the Politburo you were involved at Archangel.”
“You’re well informed, Jack.”
“Like I said, I have my uses.”
Bond nodded. “Let’s see if that’s the case. Why is Ouromov appearing at the Politburo?”
“They hold him responsible for what happened at Archangel. Killing a British agent hasn’t helped his case but they say there are other reasons which I don’t know of.”
Alec. Bond discarded the thought. That was then, this was something else. Ouromov was an important man in the crumbling USSR yet not all that important compared to others. The destruction of chemical and biological weapons would warrant in the old days severe punishment. The Politburo would not summon him in person.
Bond put his empty glass on a passing tray, thanking the waiter and adjusted his own tuxedo. “You’ve been helpful, Jack, my thanks.”
“Going home?”
“Nothing else to do,” Bond was not disappointed. Not all missions had the scope or time as past operations like Bedlam or Thunderball. He made to walk off yet something or someone caught his eye, made him look up. Standing by the exit to the hall, trying to say his goodbyes to the British ambassador was a man of a sizable build with black but greying short hair wearing black clothes complete with white silk scarf.
“My God, Valentin Zhukovsky.”
As Bond said this, the man in question managed to get away. His eye briefly caught Bond’s and then he was gone limping, aided by a silver cane.
“You mean the Zhukovsky who is a big money backer of the army through weapons and everything?” Wade drawled.
“Yes,” Bond said stiffly heading off. He ignored Wade, managing to get outside where the air was cutting with its coldness. A big white Mercedes CL was making its way down the road following the Volga. Bond jogged down the pavement following the road half a block to a seemingly dark side-road. Whistling the first few bars of “Rule, Britannia” prompted the ignition of a car’s engine and it’s turning on of headlights. Bond could not help but smile a little at the sight of his Aston Martin V8 Vantage coming to life.
Seconds later he was driving off with Zhukovsky’s Mercedes on the horizon heading into Moscow’s centre.

[continues]
[i]

DOUBLE-BILL

---

CHAPTER SIX

“One Man’s Limp is another Man’s Advantage”

Bond managed to close the gap on Zhukovsky’s sperm whale of a car but he knew where the man was heading. A warehouse and office complex near the rail station shunting yards. It was almost curious to Bond how, after all this time as an agent, he had never really spent much time in Moscow. His battleground against the Soviet had been elsewhere.
Bond pulled up beside a solitary buffer that jutted from the top of the rail-yard like a thumb. On the buffer sat a single carriage covered in graffiti. He checked the car was secure then left it heading to the complex. Certainly, it was after midnight but it was a dark foreboding collection of buildings befitting a film noir than the headquarters of this business magnate. Despite the faltering nature of the economy, Zhukovsky had grown rich though not all of his dealings were solely within the USSR. His caviar facility in Turkey was one key example.
This part of the business was open though, quite literally as Bond pushed a door open down the side of the warehouse a few feet from where the Mercedes sat ticking away. As Bond closed the door he was assaulted by the smell of alcohol, cigarettes and sweat. Loud music thumped away in the far corner from Bond. Between Bond and the music were the makings of a nightclub-bar. Clearly, this was the clubs regular appearance.
Bond was not approached as he walked across the floor and paused on the edge of a halo of light that swept out from a makeshift platform upon which a large woman belted out –rather painfully- the Beatles’ “Penny Lane”.
“Never a pair of earmuffs when one needs them,” Bond remarked. He pressed on to an office door. Straight in.
Zhukovsky was sat behind a large wooden desk looking up. As Bond entered the room a slim blonde leapt to her feet from beneath the desk. She hastily got out and around the desk like her life depended on it. Bond gave her a look as she headed out then looked at the Russian.
“I see your taste in women remains expensive, Valentin Oleg’vych.”
Zhukovsky quickly made motions beneath the desk accompanied by a loud noise of a zipper doing up. He gave Bond a stony look. “Bond, James Bond. Last time I saw you, you were walking away from pumping a bullet into my left knee.”
Bond nodded. “You got in the way of the mission.”
“Always mission,” Zhukovsky sighed. He got up and ambled to a drinks cabinet. “Vodka Martini?”
“Just vodka, neat.”
“Sit, sit. So what can I do for you?”
Bond sat loosening the tuxedo. “You were at the embassy…”
“Coincidence,” the Russian came back handing Bond a small glass. There was black pepper sprinkled on the top reminding Bond of past times. He made a small toast in Russian to Zhukovsky and knocked the drink back in one. “You don’t come to Russia for coincidences. For one, I’ve heard you knocked off a plant in Sverdlovsk.”
“My, you well informed,” Bond said.
“You don’t live long in Moscow without keeping ahead of pack,” Zhukovsky sat down heavily in his leather chair. “Your ambassador was thanking me for the English language school I am opening in his honour.”
Bond chuckled. “Really?”
“Really. Times are changing, James. Like in the Central Committee. Germany is soon to be one whole country, Yugoslavia and the rest independent…now they are faced with a general and his expensive ruin.”
“I can’t imagine…”
Zhukovsky was blunt in his cutting across of the British agent. “Not Sverdlovsk, his other project. A pet one that the buro has allowed to gain pace and could bring an end to this Cold War. A very hot…very hot end.”
Bond pulled his cigarette case out flicking it open he gestured to Valentin: “May I?”
“Please.”
Bond lit one of his custom cigarettes (from Morlands on Grosvenor Street, still going despite the profligacy of big corporations) with his gift lighter. The large flame prompted a shout from Zhukovsky in turn prompting two goons to barge in guns drawn.
“Go! Go! I was just taken by surprise…and tell Zayla to stop her screeching. I’m sure we don’t need a lawsuit by McCartney thank you very much!”
“Yes, boss.”
After the door was shut Bond puffed on his cigarette thoughtfully. “The last time a general wanted to turn this into a Hot War I ended up in the Kremlin shooting him.”
“Orlov is old news,” Zhukovsky lit a cigar with Bond’s lighter and leant back blowing smoke upwards. “He was a fool to begin with. What dear old Sergei Antonovych wishes to do is something else. All we know is that the project is known as JANUS.”
“The two-faced man,” Bond murmured. He looked around, seeing a map he gestured to it.
“No one knows anything about it only that it exists.”
“What is it then?” Bond was growing exasperated. Some years ago on a trip into Russia Bond had been assigned to bring out a station chief who had gone in over his head. He had stayed deep cover for too long. Zhukovsky, working in part for the KGB, was closing in. Bond was bundling the station chief up the stairs of a DC-3 Dakota –the aim to get the chief into West Germany from Leningrad- when Zhukovsky caught up. On a snowy airfield Bond blocked off the stairs that were even then being pulled up, the engines of the DC-3 were whipping the snow into frenzy. Bond and Zhukovsky had a war of words before, as Zhukovsky aimed to shoot out the tyres of the Dak’, Bond shot him in the left knee. Exasperation came quickly to Bond with this man.
“For that you’d need to go to the archives.”
Bond stubbed his cigarette out on the arm of the chair. “You’re wasting my time. For someone who has his finger in a lot of pies you strike me as being blissfully ignorant.”
“This is something even I don’t know, Commander,” Zhukovsky stood walking around with a heavy list to port he sat on the desk by Bond. “You’re lucky to get your 00 status back from what I’ve heard. Ever thought of retiring?”
“Have you?”
The Russian laughed. “Me? Never. Look, go to the archives or do what you have to do. All we know is that time is running out.”
“How long?”
“Weeks.”
In Bond’s field that was a lifetime. He stood and held a hand out.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime.”
Zhukovsky gripped the hand. West and East united.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Just a Communist”

It was snowing when Bond made his way to the Moscow archives. They were not quite as dreary as made out by the name. This was where current missions were dealt with or at least organised into files. Hence the archives proximity to Dzerzhinsky Square and other prominent parts of the Soviet machine. Bond did not simply walk in for this was not that kind of archives after all hence the double guard on all the entrances that looked as if they themselves were carved from the same stone that contained these materials.
Bond stood on a corner next to a bus stop pretending to look at the times. He lit a cigarette and walked down to the guards at the east entrance.
“Comrades, can you tell me the next bus to the Kremlin?”
The guards exchanged looks before one on the left spoke in a gravelly voice. “Ten minutes, you have spare cigarette?”
Bond handed two cheap but passable Turkish cigarettes from the left side of his case to them and lit the cigarettes with his other lighter. Somehow Felix’s one would not be ideal for these two. “You must get paid a lot for this job!”
“Hardly. I’d sooner be in the Arctic than here!” the sole speaker of the two said.
“That bad, huh?”
“He exaggerates,” said the other, “Afghanistan is preferable!”
They both laughed at that, big booming laughs. As they talked Bond had edged between the two then on the steps of the entrance. As the laughs faded someone emerged from the archives, Bond turned left into him and began to apologise exuberantly. The other, a balding man with spectacles –the classic image of a harried computer technician- smiled awkwardly and headed off. Bond slipped inside. The guards turned back to their stone faced expressions none the wiser. Inside Bond pulled out the ID he had slipped from the man’s jacket in their ‘collision’. He whistled to himself as he headed for a lift reading the departmental names before settling on number four.
By the time Bond arrived on the fourth floor he had changed. Well, not quite a full change but looked different. He wore a large fur hat similar to the types favoured by officers and those of importance in Russia. His coat at the lapels now sported captain badges which he hoped would do the trick. Thank God for Q Branch, he thought as he approached a dark haired woman sat at a computer terminal.
“Greetings Comrade! I am Captain Illya Zaitsev. I need to see urgent files on any operation General Ouromov is working on.”
The woman looked up at him with dull, bored eyes. She was quite attractive, Bond thought. The brunette hair touched past her shoulders, her eyes (despite the listlessness) were a shocking shade of azure blue and she had a full figure with curves in the right places. How did this woman end up here? He pondered.
“We have no request in writing, Comrade Captain.”
Her accent suggested she was a Muscovite though there were hints of Ukraine there. Kiev.
Bond looked up. Beyond her were three rows of desks covered in books, file holders, computers and the like. At the far end beyond the desks were a whole line of proper archives on steel shelves behind a wire mesh. To the left of the desks the floor was open showing the third floor and below that the others through gantry-like floor tiles. He looked down at her. She wore an uniform though the top was covered by an ugly cardigan.
“Who are you?”
“Lieutenant Second Class Natayla Olegova at your service.”
Bond smiled. “Operation Janus, Natalya…if you will.”
Natayla frowned. “You have no ID on you, Captain.”
“Janus is that top secret, hmm?”
“Hmm indeed. Level one.”
Bond’s eyebrows lifted. So, Ouromov was onto something that good. But what? His admittedly pedestrian approach had not gained him much ground with this woman.
“Perhaps if you would like me to sweeten the deal, Comrade.”
“Like how?”
More of a dare than a question. How could you possibly corrupt me, Comrade Captain?
“A hundred American dollars.”
She spat at his feet. “How dare you insult me! I am a good Russian, good Soviet! And you dare to try and bribe me. I’m not like the rest in this city, sir, I’m an honourable woman.”
“I’m sure,” Bond murmured in English glancing around to see if anyone was coming. “General Ouromov is up to something that could put the future of this country at risk. It’s up to me to stop him.”
She stared at him then turned away. “Perhaps it will save this country from the abyss. If only we had a leader like Stalin.”
Bond choked on a laugh but then it was a statement that if he were Russian he’d likely agree with. Maybe. “Can you help me Natayla Olegova?”
“No.”
Bond was tempted to rough her up but that would accomplish nothing but the damaging of chivalry in his mind. He stood and began to walk to the lifts when he heard a commotion on the far side. Glancing over his shoulder he saw two guards with AK-47’s unslung head over with a balding man behind him.
“There, that must be the man!”
“Stop, stop thief!” a guard shouted.
Bond caught Natayla’s look of shock breaking through the faint disgust of before. He smiled and said: “I must be more popular than I let on.”
“Who are you?” she asked as he drew his PPK from his coat and aimed it upwards.
“A friend.”
Bond fired twice into the ceiling around one pillar. There was a sudden explosion of gas into the floor from the ruptured air conditioner and fire suppression system built into the roof.
When the smoke cleared, Bond was gone.

**

“Who was he?”
“I do not know Comrade General.”
“Who was he!”
“I do not know Comrade General!”
Ouromov standing behind Natalya straightened slapping his leather gloves together like a seal. Natayla had been arrested not long after the appearance of this Captain Illya. Ouromov bent forward grabbing her by the neck jerking it back like a turkey.
“What did he want?”
“Just this Operation Janus,” she gasped.
Ouromov let her go prowling around her in the tight cell somewhere beneath the KGB headquarters. “People have been sent to the Lubyanka for less, Natayla.”
“I honestly don’t know,” she said huskily bowing her head. “I’m an honourable officer.”
That was true. Her file –though wafer thin- showed a good honest girl from the Crimea who had been moved here as a girl when her father left the Black Sea navy base for headquarters here. A girl who though rebellious at school was a faithful communist. Unmarried, few if any boyfriends. KGB notes indicated she was not a homosexual, just someone with a frightfully sparse social life.
Ouromov studied the hunched figure before him from under his small bearskin hat. “Do you know what Janus is, girl?”
“No, comrade.”
“Good.”
A captain from intelligence appeared at the door with a somewhat harried look on his face. Negotiating the subterranean bowels of KGB HQ often inspired fear in those who were not familiar with it. Fear of being kept here for eternity or worse. “General!”
Ouromov walked over. “What have you found?”
“There was an Illya Zaitsev in the army.”
“Oh?”
The captain gave a sharp grin like a wolf. “He died in the Battle for Berlin, April 30th 1945.”
“So a cover.”
“Yes, sir…”
“You idiot!” roared Ouromov. “Even I could figure that out! Who was he really? Have you searched the security cameras? Have you found anything really of note!?”
The captain’s smile faded. “The camera system was inactive. Has been for a week. Lack of power…”
“Stalin’s ghost!” Ouromov turned to Natayla her head still bowed. “Comrade, I hope you have learned some lesson. I’m releasing you to the archives.”
“Sir.”
She’d be watched of course. Ouromov would arrange his own monitoring but the KGB would watch and that was enough.
When she was released she gathered her few meagre possessions from the desk officer and headed off into Moscow, catching the metro north into the city. She lived in a plain, 1960s concrete mess of a block of flats close to the top. She always walked with one hand curled around a knitting pin in her handbag. Her flat was sparse. A picture of Stalin and a smaller one of Lenin hung on the wall over the broken fireplace. On the fireplace was a black and white photo. She picked that up staring at the image of her grandfather on the steps of the Reichkanzlei after the war’s end. He held a torn swastika banner in one hand and a bust of Hitler in the other with a triumphant grin on his face.
“Oh grandpa, what you’d think of Russia now.”
Going to her window she looked out on the street below and saw a car parked across the road by the metro station with two men in the front.
“Party of Lenin, Party of Stalin,” she murmured.
And went to bed.

[continues]

DOUBLE-BILL

CHAPTER EIGHT

“Gratitude, is a disease of dogs”

Natayla Olegova returned to work the next morning bright and early. She fetched coffee for her comrades and for herself before settling down at her terminal. She began to go through the files that needed to be processed. Mainly KGB interrogation records. Occasionally she found herself reading but that only owed for sleepless nights. Her father had worked for the Moscow police after his stint in the army and once told her, in his later years, of the interrogation methods employed. ‘Made the Gestapo look like Salvation Army workers’ he once said.
With a shrug she logged into her computer and was soon lost in her work. She was oblivious to the shaking that was caused by colleagues walking on the floor gratings. She had another coffee as the time passed. Her computing skills were quite technical, more so than most of the others in this department. Natalya could if she got going could hack into most computer systems but was never allowed here in the computer archives. Towards the end of her shift she finally decided to do something different.
She searched for JANUS.
Natalya would not know really why she looked for it. Maybe because she could, maybe because the fake Captain Illya had provoked something in her or maybe it was something to get back at Ouromov for his interrogation.
Her screen changed showing green on black text from top to bottom.

Operation Janus:
Objective to wipe out Western computer systems by Electric Magnetic Pulse ignited from orbit using Western satellites as cover…

She read on eyes widening then heard the thumping of boots on the floor coming from the paper archive side of the floor. Looking up she saw a dozen troops heading her way with Ouromov at the head. How could he know so quickly?
“You’re under arrest Natayla Olegova for treason against the state, stand.”
Natayla did so quite slowly, enough for the general to grab her by the arm and haul her up. She was shoved at the nearest soldier who took a firm hold on her. She was marched out. Outside in Dzerzhinsky Square she was herded into a military car and driven off at speed with a lorry full of the soldiers behind her.
“All this for me, Comrade General?”
“Quiet. You will learn the meaning of treachery.”
“How could you know?”
“A hunch.”
Natayla smiled cruelly. “Unless you were acting on someone’s orders. The Politburo?”
Ouromov did not answer. As the car turned onto the riverside road heading south the lorry carrying the troops suddenly veered left and crashed over the railings into the Volga. Ouromov stared in horror at the sight purely as it contained his sole protection but also for the fact that the chassis of the vehicle remained moving forward on the road. He searched the road and saw closing in on his car a shining black Aston Martin. He recognised the car for its blatant capitalism. He saw a hint of the driver as the sunlight broke cloud cover.
“Bond!” he hissed. He turned to the driver. “Hurry! To hell with the law and go!”

**

Lying low after his Captain Illya routine, Bond had chosen to avoid Jack Wade that night and thus MI6 back in London got word that Bond had simply vanished. The British Embassy was none the wiser, not really confirming or denying that Bond had been there in the first place. In the morning he went to Valentin Zhukovsky’s building yet found it empty with a notice that Zhukovsky was away for a business trip. He had not expected to gain more information yet had wanted to see if he could. Thus he drove over to Dzerzhinsky Square with an aim of forcing a way into the Janus file. He knew there had to be a file and he would find a way of finding out what lay in it.
As he arrived he saw Natayla being carried away and started to follow. Bond chewed it over in his mind what to do. He was in Moscow, the Lion’s Den and any action would be seen twice as bad in the eyes of the Russians than in somewhere like Istanbul.
Bond gave chase.
He accelerated closing in on the lorry not noticing the looks his car was getting from the soldiers sat in the vehicle. Flicking the indicator switch on his steering wheel all the way round he passed down the right side of the lorry. As he did so his hub caps locked before emitting a very fine red laser that started to drill down the side of the lorry. After a few seconds he was past, on his windscreen a simple message appeared: OPERATION COMPLETE.
Bond looked grim, changing gears he accelerated. Ahead of him the Russian military car sped ahead narrowly missing the rear of a taxi as it swerved around. Bond neatly changed lanes going up the left. Cars made whooshing sounds as he overtook them. Ahead lay a traffic junction with a bridge to its left. Ouromov’s car shot out across traffic and jerkily skidded left onto the bridge. Bond was in the open and swung his wheel about looking over his shoulder as the Aston swung in a circle. He corrected the turn and was once again after Ouromov. A map of Moscow appeared on Bond’s dashboard suggesting routes to take to cut ahead but Bond stayed with the car that was causing so much chaos now. It turned right jumping the curb before vanishing into a courtyard. Bond went after it the slightly wider Aston copping it down the sides of the narrow entrance before emerging into the courtyard further scattering startled Muscovites in a very civic square. Then through another alleyway and out onto a smaller road. Here it was jammed with traffic but Ouromov was going up the right hand side on the pavement. Bond turned away to the left entering another courtyard then right and hit the accelerator to the floor. His dashboard map showed where Ouromov would likely end up.
The rail yards.
Bond emerged into the industrial heartland of Moscow after ten minutes and slowed down as he motored past work crews carrying equipment. They gave the car an envious look as he passed. Then he spotted the beat up military car by a siding at which a sleek black old missile train was pulling out of. The kind that kept the West guessing over where the Russians were likely to launch from in the event of war. If Kennedy heard about these in 1962 he might have had a heart attack.
Bond took a guess and parked the car out of the way. He set the usual systems inside the car then was off at a sprint. The train now was gathering pace with a strong blast on its horn. Bond leapt on at the rear holding on to a stanchion for dear life before swinging himself inside the rearmost carriage. He took a breath looking around then drew his PPK. He moved off slowly. The carriages were old style tsarist era decorated affairs, not the bland, black steel covered monstrosities that missile trains were. The train leant hard to its left as it changed tracks then was rattling through at a greater speed. Bond crossed into a second carriage prompted by the automatic whooshing of a connecting door upwards into the ceiling. He stopped, startled by this. Beyond was a green-grey room lined on one side by computer terminals much more advanced than the Russian terminals. An electronic map of the USSR was above the terminals. Stood to one side was Ouromov holding a gun on Natayla. He looked with nervous surprise a Bond. The other occupant beyond the Russian girl wore black, his blond hair interrupted by the torn and folded pink of burnt skin which extended down onto his right cheek. The blue eyes glittered with humour as Bond lowered his PPK stunned.
“Won’t you join us, James? You’re just in time.”
Said 006, Alec Trevelyan.

CHAPTER NINE

“Janus”

“Surprised?”
Bond was disarmed by Ouromov who quickly stood back. “Please, General, not so hasty. James here seems quite out of it. Tea?”
Bond began to scowl as if he had smelt something quite bad. “You’re dead, Alec.”
“A man lives twice you’ll find, James,” Trevelyan held a hand out taking the PPK from Ouromov. Turning it over in his hand he regarded Bond. “Cheap tack, James. I thought you trusted a Beretta.”
“I trusted you.”
“Spare me the airport thriller dialogue,” Trevelyan aimed a look up at the ceiling then back to Bond. “You wonder why I’m not dead. Killed first by the bullet then your mistimed bomb.”
“There was a mission. You would have done the same. You should’ve KNOWN I’d change the time,” Bond said as if each word was being carved from stone. “I saw Ouromov shoot you.”
“A well-timed shot,” Ouromov said huskily. “I grazed his head across the scalp.”
Ouromov sounded quite proud, Bond knew from his record he was a good shot but this moment of pride cost the former 006 to snap: “Shut up, General!”
“You’re working for Alec, here?” Bond murmured. “You want to get your glory this way? So what’s the deal, Alec? Ouromov for…glory?”
“You don’t understand, James. Of course you don’t. My reasons haven’t been explained nor indeed, the plan. I’m betting you don’t know what Janus is.”
“I’m betting you’ve never been loyal to anything in your life you bastard,” Bond growled. He was aware of Natalya’s gaze upon him as if he was an alien from space. “Unlike this girl.”
“I’m no girl!”
“Stow it,” he snapped trying to maintain a level footing figuratively speaking. He nodded at the former 006. “So, you take over whatever Janus is and then…then what, Alec? A healthy slice of profit and retreat to Cuba?”
“Nothing quite so mundane.”
Trevelyan stood wandering up to Natalya he slapped her hard across the face then smiled at Bond. “Willing Communist girl to do anything for the cause. In this case it’s the Janus system. You see there’s a base someplace, I shan’t mention where, with a dish and so forth that’s able to send a pulse initially up into space to hijack a couple of American spy satellites. We then use them to send an EMP pulse down and knock out all Western computers in Europe.”
“Thus rendering the West open to attack in all senses,” Bond said.
“Yes, indeed. I aim to both plunder the money from the West but also allow the generals one last shot at glory. Tanks all the way to the Channel.”
Bond looked hard at Trevelyan. He’d laugh if it was not so crazy. “Some of this I heard from Orlov.”
“Chap lacked panache. Also, his plan sort of was different. He did after all get to cripple a British aircraft carrier before you and that Leiter chap parachuted into the Kremlin.”
“The girl?”
“Collateral but you see after yesterday Ouromov came to me and told me about her. Apparently she’s a right little whizzkid so naturally I had to have her. Most of my chaps at the base are downright useless.” Trevelyan reached for a bottle of vodka by Natalya on a cabinet top. “You’re wondering why?”
“Thought had occurred to me.”
“Simply this, revenge. Well…not quite. I’m Russian, James. Once a Russian always a Russian.”
“Deep cover agent.”
“More or less. My parents were idiots, defecting when they did. Thought by bringing me to Britain they’d change our lives infinitely for the better. No, the decadent west did the opposite.”
“You traitor…”
“Shut up,” Alec said calmly. He nodded to Ouromov. “Shoot him.”
“But…he’s a British agent…”
“Do it, General. You’ve done it before.”
Ouromov turned to Bond looking almost apologetic. “On your knees.”
Bond fell slowly to his knees putting his hands behind his head. “No last request?”
“None,” Trevelyan said. “Remember you died for England, James.”
Bond lowered his head. Pursing his lips he waited to feel the muzzle of the gun upon his scalp. The wiping out of the West’s computers to hijack money from bank accounts but also to render the defences useless. Mostly useless.
Bond whistled shortly and sharply, almost to the range that a dog could hear and no one else. Trevelyan actually clapped his hands to his ears as did Natalya a moment later. The key chain still in Bond’s pocket let out a sharp burst of gas that startled Ouromov.
Enough for Bond to surge to his feet grabbing at the extended arm of Ouromov and wrenching it down flinging the general over his shoulder. Bond made for the traitor Trevelyan yet the former 00 pressed something on his belt prompting a sheet of metal to descend between Bond and Trevelyan.
Bond shoulder charged yet bounced off. He searched for a doorway, anything to find purchase. He heard Natalya from the other side struggle and scream. The train began to rock and vibrate harder than before not from picking up speed but something else. Bond then heard in Russian a voice announce: “Standby for vehicular separation.” After this intonation the train came to a sudden and violent halt throwing Bond into the blast shield then back through the door. By the time he recovered his wits Bond found the front half of the train taking off down the track with smoke pouring from its wheels and one car attached. Bond wasted no time as he heard angry voices from aft of his carriage accompanied by the trampling of gravel under jackboots. He leapt from the carriage and stole away into undergrowth lining the track.

[continues]