Timothy Dalton -"A Whisper of Hate"

coco1997 wrote:

Hilly wrote:

I say, I say. I suspect those are the closest approximation to who I picture for the respective roles.

Glad you approve. Had a hard time coming up with a solid suggestion for Xenia; there isn't much in the way of Georgian actress databases out there. ;) Ideally I would have liked to use another Russian, but Famke imitated a Georgian accent, anyway, so I wouldn't have seen it being much of a problem.

Quote :

Your advice is welcome all the same :) I only wish Bong were here, he tended to be spewing some story out alongside one of mine on old MI6. Usually Roger Moore/Brosnan features.

I miss those glory days of the old MI6, as well. You're carrying the torch admirably by yourself, though.

Well, bless you. I need to watch Skyfall now that I have it on DVD or any Bond film. My thoughts turn to post-Whisper but nothing original presents itself.

As for Georgian actresses they're not a must. If Rachel Weisz can play a Russian without accent (and indeed her castmates) in Enemy at the Gates someone can a Georgian in a made-up Bond film. :)

Even though you're a bit stuck for now, do you have any sense of what point we're at in the story? I know it's taken a bit of a detour from the original GE storyline but I was wondering where we might stand at the momnt, i.e. second act/middle of the "film", third act, etc.

coco1997 wrote:

Even though you're a bit stuck for now, do you have any sense of what point we're at in the story? I know it's taken a bit of a detour from the original GE storyline but I was wondering where we might stand at the momnt, i.e. second act/middle of the "film", third act, etc.

Looking at it last week, I think we're in the final act now. It has that feel of the final stages. It might take a few more chapters (the MI6 stories always reached 21 chapters other than Death is So Permanent/Shatterhand and the alternate WWII one) but it has that feel. Like DAF when Bond reached Blofeld's base or TSWLM when Bond took the submarine to Atlantis (my Lazenby versions).

The end is in sight. Just a matter of crossing the bridge.

Hilly wrote:

Looking at it last week, I think we're in the final act now. It has that feel of the final stages. It might take a few more chapters (the MI6 stories always reached 21 chapters other than Death is So Permanent/Shatterhand and the alternate WWII one) but it has that feel. Like DAF when Bond reached Blofeld's base or TSWLM when Bond took the submarine to Atlantis (my Lazenby versions).

The end is in sight. Just a matter of crossing the bridge.

Sounds good. Not that I want it to end or anything. ;) I've always enjoyed picturing your stories as alternate universe Bond films in my mind's eye, with real actors, settings, John Barry music, etc. I figured that once we got your version of the black missile train sequence that we must be moving closer to the final act of the story.

coco1997 wrote:

Hilly wrote:

Looking at it last week, I think we're in the final act now. It has that feel of the final stages. It might take a few more chapters (the MI6 stories always reached 21 chapters other than Death is So Permanent/Shatterhand and the alternate WWII one) but it has that feel. Like DAF when Bond reached Blofeld's base or TSWLM when Bond took the submarine to Atlantis (my Lazenby versions).

The end is in sight. Just a matter of crossing the bridge.

Sounds good. Not that I want it to end or anything. ;) I've always enjoyed picturing your stories as alternate universe Bond films in my mind's eye, with real actors, settings, John Barry music, etc. I figured that once we got your version of the black missile train sequence that we must be moving closer to the final act of the story.

Some of it has changed vastly but the missile train sort of needed to be done I think. I guess I thought with my own take of the chase it had to end the same way but with a change, such as Natayla being kidnapped. No Boris...no...no...no. He was fun when I was 9 but now that I'm a grouchy 27 year-old not so much.

Hilly wrote:

I guess I thought with my own take of the chase it had to end the same way but with a change, such as Natayla being kidnapped. No Boris...no...no...no. He was fun when I was 9 but now that I'm a grouchy 27 year-old not so much.

I like that Bond is mostly working sans-womanly assistance throughout most of the story. Bond is more of a lone wolf than he was in GE or either of the Dalton films, and I think that fits Dalton's persona like a glove, especially coming off the events of LTK. Gives it another similarity to Skyfall.

It does work for this story. By and large I don't mind Bond being without a woman throughout the story. The way I've looked at it this time is that it just doesn't seem worth it. When I did things like VTAK and the others I threw in a woman because that was the plot. I could drastically eliminate things I guess if I ever went back to it. Though I spiced up Stacey for the Sam Neill VTAK so that she seemed more than she was.

Agreed.

Now, on to my casting call for Valentin Zukovsky and Julian Chivers... ;)

coco1997 wrote:

Agreed.

Now, on to my casting call for Valentin Zukovsky and Julian Chivers... ;)

Ah, yes...poor old Chivers. I daresay he might return in a future....I say, future, Bond.

I'll keep that in mind ;)

coco1997 wrote:

I'll keep that in mind ;)

As long as someone does. I can have selective memory when it comes to writing. :D

Friends, Romans et al...a chapter.

I deleted most of what I had for this one and wrote afresh. It's not perfect (I'm well into my work week so my mind's a bit fuzzy) and Bond's actions might not be kosher but somehow they seemed to fit.

--

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“Engel-Stadt”

Engel-Stadt sat amongst the lower reaches of the Ore Mountains that stretched north across the border right up past Dresden and beyond. The whole area was rich in natural beauty. Engel-Stadt was to the west by a few miles of Zinnwald-Georgenfeld. Such was the distance from Dresden it took under an hour to drive here and that was without Bond knowing where it was.
Onatopp had come to before they drove into the small town.
“You can’t win.”
“I like the odds.”
“What happens to me?”
“Let me count the ways,” Bond said focusing on the drive. The town seemed to be swarming with air force personnel. There was the odd German walking around but they seemed to be outnumbered by the military. They drove past the football stadium with its old Gothic text on the walls –FC ENGELSTADT!- and stopped by the train station. Bond got out of the car looking about. He got back into the car looking over his shoulder he reversed back onto the main road and turned in a semi-circle back towards the town’s exit.
“You have no idea what you’re doing.”
“Shut up,” Bond said. He stopped a short while on by a beerhaus. Getting out he went into the place stopping in the buildings doorway. He saw a group of Red Air Force pilots, all wearing bomber jackets. He looked at their crests and recognised it: 144th (Bratislava) Squadron. He went back out taking Onatopp by the arm. “We’re going upstairs, hopefully. Now, if you keep quiet I’ll be obliged.” Reinforcing his threat Bond put his PPK into his left pocket, turning he jabbed the jacket against her pressing the nose of the gun into her ribs. Together they walked in, she leant against him almost drunkenly. Behind the bar, holding court over the pilots, was a buxom, large grey haired woman in traditional German clothes. She resembled a roadblock to Bond’s eye, not matching the idea he had of a typical German hausfrau.
“We’re looking for a room for the night or next two nights. On our way back to Berlin from our honeymoon.”
The woman looked them over and nodded. “Hundred marks.”
“Steep,” Bond remarked reaching for his wallet with his free hand. “But I’ll take it.”
As he handed the notes over one of the pilots said in halting German: “Where did you honeymoon?”
“Zurich.”
“Ah…”
Bond ignored the rest as he was handed a key. The room was on the second and top floor at the back overlooking a garden. Two other pilots were smoking cigarettes whilst laughing loudly. Bond drew the curtains then turned to Onatopp with his gun trained on her. “Where is Trevelyan?”
“Why would I tell you? Even after you’ve driven me all the way across Germany.”
She walked slowly towards him swaying her hips. She licked her full red lips. “You can’t win.”
Bond waited until she was close to him and nodded. “Maybe I can’t but I’ll be forgiven for giving it a bloody good try,” he then cuffed her across the face. She staggered back, tripping on the cheap carpet she landed on the bed and looked up at him. Patting the bed with her hands she smiled despite the blood trickling from her nose.
“You like it rough, Mr Bond.”
He took his silencer out, methodically screwing it on then looking at her. Her smile faded as she saw the cold hard look on his face. Her face paled as he aimed the gun at her.
“Trevelyan.”
“Nyet!”
Bond fired twice, rapidly. Two taps. One each side of Onatopp’s head. She rolled to her left spitting at Bond. When she ended face up on the edge of the bed she stared right into the end of the silencer. “You think this is a game. You don’t know what Trevelyan is capable of. He’s in with the wrong crowd and he’s psychopathic. Where is he!”
She lashed out with her left foot catching Bond in the thigh. He staggered, hitting the ground as she landed on him like a wild cat. Bond elbowed her in the chest falling back onto her then rolled over pinning her to the ground. He wrestled her to her feet getting her onto the bed. As she fought him Bond was able to tie her left hand to the bed-rail. He slapped her not regretting his action.
“You want it rough, you’ll get it rough,” he growled as he was able to handcuff her to the rail. It struck him that she had not screamed or called for help. “Where’s Trevelyan?”
“Death to spies,” she hissed.
Bond stood back breathing hard. “Damn. What has he promised you?”
“The world,” she replied. “More than anything you could give me.”
Bond felt rage within him, he wanted to kill her but that would accomplish nothing. He instead gagged her securely and left the room. As he left the beerhaus the hausfrau called after him something vulgar about a honeymooning couple. Outside in the cold he shoved his hands into his pockets.
He felt as if the world around him was moving fast. Eyes upon him. Eyes from every building he could see…
…Bond waited for the world to stop spinning.
Getting into the VW he drove off, looking for clues.
Hunting an old friend.

It appears Dalton's Bond does like it rough. ;)

Keep up the masterful work, Hilly.

Thanks. There's a sense that Dalton's Bond is growing increasingly ticked and sooner or later he'll blow. Which he will, of course.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“The Taste of Death”

A tired Bond drove back to the beerhaus after midnight. He had a map of Engel-Stadt which he hoped to mark down what he had seen that might be of use. He would have to wait until the morning to find the dish. He trod through the darkened reception area to go upstairs hearing some sounds from various rooms which he gave little notice to. When he arrived to his room he felt something out of place. Drawing his PPK he unlocked the door and slipped into the room. It was dark for one lamp that flickered and hissed with a bad bulb. Onatopp was still lying on the bed.
Bond went to her noticing how the chin touched her chest, how her eyes were half-open yet unseeing. He cursed lifting her chin with one hand he looked into those eyes then put his PPK down. Removing her gag he saw how it came away with dried white powder, he slipped a finger inside her mouth probing now smelling more strongly the scent of almonds –the tell-tell smell of cyanide. He found on her back right tooth a metal frame big enough without being obtrusive to hold a cyanide tablet.
“Not quite KGB,” Bond said to himself pulling his finger out. “A gift from Alec.”
So, she had taken the easy way out reminding Bond of the Nazis who did so after capture at the end of the war and long after the war. Goring, Himmler, Model and the rest. He sat down on the bed next to her and considered his options. After a moment’s pause he took her binds off and threw them out of the window. Now, he had to get her down to the car. He put her over one shoulder in a fireman’s lift then opened his door. Hearing only the sound of a TV on his floor he began to go downstairs armed only with his wits –such as they now were. Out into the car he bundled the body and drove off.
After dumping the body far out into the woods outside Engel-Stadt Bond returned into the town but this time stopped at an all-night canteen near the football stadium. He ordered a large breakfast with pitcher of coffee and sat at the counter talking with the old man with his Kaiser-Bill moustache.
“You have come from, Mein Herr?”
“Berlin.”
“Ah, a beautiful city or at least it was when I was a boy. The cultural heart of Europe. Then Hitler changed all that.”
“Have you noticed anything happening in this area?” Bond said around a mouthful of sauerkraut. “Out of place?”
Kaiser Bill nodded. “Ach so, the damned Russians moving in their Czech lapdog pilots. Until a few months ago we had nothing more than a single tank come to this town. Even the Nazis had a small presence here. A few days ago some bigshot came to town, a general. Full convoy and the rest.”
“General?”
“Ouromov I think his name was. He came in here to tell me that there were changes afoot and it was all for the good of the USSR. Fat lot of good the USSR is to be,” the man touched his apron with a grin, “I’m a German. A proper German still!”
“Communist?”
A belly laugh. “Not quite. I was no Nazi either, I spent the war in a concentration camp for being too left of their ideas all the same.” The smile faded. “You’re not German despite your fluency, Mein Herr.”
Bond smiled. So much for being a spy if someone like this could pick him out. Well, he didn’t identify him as a spy but even so. “What makes you think that?”
“Your look, your questions and the fact you’re having a large breakfast at 4am in the morning.”
“I work nights.”
“Must be an interesting line of work.”
“I deal with the oddjobs that no one else wants. Removals and all that.”
“Ach. More coffee?”
“Bitte.”
As the man poured Bond asked, “Where can I get a plane? Hire one out?”
“Go to the airfield. Look for a man named Otto, say Heinz sent you. He’ll help you out.”
“Danke.”
“Don’t mention it.”

**

A red-eyed Bond drove out to the airfield on the western edge of Engel-Stadt at dawn after a rough sleep in the beerhaus. Engel-Flugplatz was hardly Berlin-Templehof but it had some scope to it. Two concrete runways extending in a X-shape out from an apron with two hangars both big enough for a jetliner of a 707 size. On the apron sat a few Mig-29’s with Czech roundels on their wings in line with the 144th (Bratislava) Squadron. Bond got out of his car and walked up to the checkpoint. The bored looking guard in his Soviet Air Force uniform looked up at Bond, he had been reading a spy novel.
“Ich motte Otto sehen, bitte.”
“Otto?”
“Heinz hat mich geschickt.”
The guard picked up a phone and asked for Otto, and that Heinz had sent this visitor. After a moment he hung up and nodded. “Go to the no.1 hangar.”
Bond was let in. As he walked hands in pockets he considered it shouldn’t be this easy to get in. Corruption was endemic in all shapes it seemed as he passed a Mig-29 closely. He looked it over. All he could do was shoot at its tyres and it was out of action for days. He paid close attention to all the jets he passed noticing they had equipment underslung to protect against EMP pulses.
“Interesting,” he murmured before passing into no.1 hangar. A man in overalls with an old Weimar flag stitched onto his left breast approached. Wiping his hands on an oily rag he held a hand out. “I’m Otto, so Heinz sent you?”
“He did. You must be quite trusting.”
“I am, Heinz and I go way back to the beerhalls in Munich,” said Otto gesturing to a scar on his gaunt face. “Nazi bayonet did this during the Putsch. Who are you?”
Bond hesitated then said: “Chivers, Julian Chivers. I need a plane to recon the area. I’m looking for something.”
“Of course you are,” Otto threw the rag into a nearby bucket. “I used to be in the Luftwaffe up until 1939. I even flew in the Spanish Civil War. I’m your man.”
“How much?”
Otto told him and Bond handed him the money. “Good to go now, Herr Chivers?”
“Yes.”
Bond was led out of the hangar and around a corner stopping dead. Ahead of them looking as pristine as the day it rolled out of the Messerschmitt works was a Messerschmitt Me110F. “You must be joking. A World War II fighter?”
“Needs must and besides she’s my girl,” Otto patted the port wing. “The Zerstorer.”
The Bf110 –as it started out as- had been quite useful in the war up until 1940 when the RAF made short work of it as its weaknesses were exposed protecting bombers. Only in Russia did it make much work and even then, not for long. Its heyday came as a nightfighter, fixed with cannon that fired upwards into the belly of enemy Lancaster or Halifax bombers as well as a heavy radar set.
Bond climbed into the second of three seats the Me110 had. He put on a much more modern helmet sliding the visor up. Otto wore one that read ‘OTTO EIN’. The two Daimler-Benz engines spluttered into life and soon they were taxiing into the second runway. Without pause the Luftwaffe veteran was airborne.
“I’m looking for a lake big enough to hide a dish.”
“Dish? As in a satellite?”
“Jawohl.”
“There are three lakes that might suit. This area is lake rich you might say,” Otto laughed. He banked the Me110 and zoomed low over sweeping trees that bent and swayed in the wake of the fighter.
“You were kicked out in 1939 then?”
Otto’s helmet bobbed as he nodded. “Ja. My past caught up with me, Herr Chivers. I was quite prepared to fight, I was a good German you might say. They saw I was once an anarchist with more friends in the KPD than NSDAP so I was kicked out and sent to Dachau.”
Bond winced. Dachau was the first Konzentrationzlager –KZ as it was known in German slang- outside the small town near Munich.
“We saw it all there. Beatings, torture and death. Not just Commies but the gays, the few blacks we had, the subversives and then came the real killing. 1942 when the Final Solution started and Dachau became a VZ.”
Vernichtungszlager.
Extermination camp.
“You wanted to fight though.”
“Not for murderers. Yes some of it happened before 1939 but on the street, it was the work of thugs. I was naïve to think the war would be like the last. Here is your first lake, Chivers.”
They hurtled over a wide stretch of water ringed by pines before Otto pulled up and circled. The waters were a turquoise blue-green looking impenetrable. Bond picked up binoculars from down by his seat and shook his head. “Not deep enough. Next one, please.”
They flew east towards the Ore Mountains which rose before them a few miles on. The next lake was a jagged diamond shape fringed on the northern side by a cleared area of flattened trees.
“Can you get lower?”
“I can get you on the water if you want!” Otto dived the plane. The Messerschmitt careered over the water giving Bond a close look. They reached the north bank and raced up into the heavens. As they did so black marks hit the clouds around them.
“What…?” Otto shouted as he turned right.
Bond looked down seeing flashed of white. “Ack-ack!”
“I think we’ve found your dish!”
From the north bank the AA guns continued, Otto dove back towards the lake jinking the fighter this way and that. The port wing suddenly broke clear forcing the plane into a spiral. Bond tilted his head the opposite way of the spin trying to open the canopy. Otto’s head hung limply over his right shoulder. Giving up Bond reached over Otto to try and reach the yoke. The spiral abruptly ended as the Me110 bounced off the lake’s surface and skimmed into the trees at the southern end. The starboard wing was snapped off, the nose blunting as it thumped through the woods before coming to a sudden stop throwing Bond forward. He crashed helmets with Otto and was flung back into his seat dazed.
Blackness then descended tinged with the sound of machinery from afar.

Excellent chapter!

"I deal with the oddjobs that no one else wants." ;)

Dalton's Bond is quite resourceful. I was waiting for some type of action sequence to break up the gumshoe-ing bits, and you delivered.

Didn't take long to do away with Xenia. Once you said you weren't sure where to take the story once you had decided to bring her in, I figured she'd get a much less glamorous death than she got in GE.

coco1997 wrote:

Excellent chapter!

"I deal with the oddjobs that no one else wants." ;)

Dalton's Bond is quite resourceful. I was waiting for some type of action sequence to break up the gumshoe-ing bits, and you delivered.

Didn't take long to do away with Xenia. Once you said you weren't sure where to take the story once you had decided to bring her in, I figured she'd get a much less glamorous death than she got in GE.

It sort of made sense to have her go out that way. That whole moment in the film leaves a sour taste. It's all downhill from here on in.

Very interested in seeing how this all comes to an end. I've always had this vision of Dalton's Bond, at the usual retirement age for Double-0s, sailing off into the sunset somewhere with Pam Bouvier...But that's just my fantasy. ;)

coco1997 wrote:

Very interested in seeing how this all comes to an end. I've always had this vision of Dalton's Bond, at the usual retirement age for Double-0s, sailing off into the sunset somewhere with Pam Bouvier...But that's just my fantasy. ;)

It'd be nice but as he said, Bond, in DAD, "I intend to last forever" -. Alright I know that's not it exactly but it's DAD.

Admittedly I was going to pair him off with Bouvier in this one but didn't think it would float. Essentially LTK II.

Anything on the way soon, Hilly?

coco1997 wrote:

Anything on the way soon, Hilly?

It's not likely. I've got other things hopping along. This, is quite dead.

Dead? :pale:

coco1997 wrote:

Dead? :pale:

Not...quite dead but it's flatlining. Like any story I get my teeth into I eventually run out of steam on it. At the moment I'm not getting any purchase on it and shoving something into it just won't work. Rushing chapters out in the past hasn't worked, one reason why I rewrote LazenbyDAF and tweaking the TSWLM one.

And soon, the rest.

Fair enough.

I'll hold out hope that we'll see the rest of it some time in the future. Seems pretty close to the finish line, so it'd be a shame for you to give your walking papers on it now.

coco1997 wrote:

Fair enough.

I'll hold out hope that we'll see the rest of it some time in the future. Seems pretty close to the finish line, so it'd be a shame for you to give your walking papers on it now.

Oh no fear, I've yet to abandon a story.

Well, not strictly true, Mask of Gold died a swift dead so I guess my record is intact.