Timothy Dalton -"A Whisper of Hate"

Which one was that?

coco1997 wrote:

Which one was that?

It was a postwar Bond story. My idea was that Bond goes into Germany to get some Nazi gold that the British government wants, largely to buffer the economy or some nonsense. I had Christopher Plummer in mind. It's on the forum. Probably right toward the bottom of the section.

Ah yes, I think that rings a bell.

Still, hoping this story enjoys a better fate. :D

coco1997 wrote:

Ah yes, I think that rings a bell.

Still, hoping this story enjoys a better fate. :D

So do I. I just spent five minutes trying to find the bloody thing. Thought I locked it like I did the others.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

“The Janus Front”

“Hello again, James. Seems your flight had problems.”
Bond came to groggily aware first of all that he was handcuffed and on his knees in an office of sorts. As his vision focused he saw behind Trevelyan a sprawling control room then closer he saw Ouromov standing by the traitor. He thought he saw Natalya on a computer in the control room.
“What, no pithy one liner?”
“Piss off,” Bond spat blood onto the office floor. He looked up, as he did so Trevelyan punched him knocking onto his side.
“Really, James I expected better of you and this is Persian as well.”
Bond grunted groaning inwardly. He rolled onto his side feeling as if he was being crushed by a steel jaw. Trevelyan kicked him in the ribs prompting an explosion of agony to hit Bond as well as a wall of red across his eyes. “Gallivanting around Southern Germany in a WWII fighter, I should’ve known.”
“You think…you could’ve hidden yourself…long?”
“I’ll win, James. That’s what matters? So, where’s Onatopp. Left her tied up I suppose. She always did like a good time.”
Bond rolled onto his back and bared his teeth in a macabre rictus of death smile. “She’s dead.”
Trevelyan’s smug look vanished replaced by one of growing anger. He began to kick Bond who wriggled like a fish trying to get away but failed to the point he bit through his lower lip trying to stifle the cries. When Trevelyan was done he was breathing hard as if he had just ran up the Alps and back down. “You lie, James. A cruel lie.”
“She took the easy way out just like you did,” Bond croaked his mouth was full of blood some of it dry and he spat again. He looked up at Trevelyan. “You’ll pay for your treason.”
“They said the same about Philby, Burgess, Maclean and the rest. You’ll find they’re alright.”
“No…you’ll pay for…it,” Bond passed out.
“Ouromov, take him away.”
Ouromov summoned two of his men who picked Bond up under the armpits and dragged him off. Ouromov followed gun holstered. He glanced over his shoulder at the British traitor. No, no one liked a traitor even Ouromov. He looked forward at the limp Bond and followed.

**

Natayla Olegova drank the bad coffee with her usual scowl of disgust. For all the money this Janus headquarters showed they still did bad coffee. She wiped her face, the fingers coming away dirty and scowled at the monitor before her. She sat at a console on the end of a long row of computers more resembling Houston’s Mission Control than anything the USSR had put together. The row sat in the middle of the large operations room. In front of the row was a wall to wall ceiling to floor computer map of Europe from the UK out to the Urals. A blue dot was travelling across the map near Archangel marked JANUS.
“Janus satellite,” she murmured to herself typing. “Will be in range in a few hours. Once that’s done, goodbye to all computer systems…then what?”
Then she’d die.
After the capture by Trevelyan she had been told in no uncertain terms that her life was now on his terms. He had tried his way with her even going so far as to have two soldiers strip her but she had resisted. She had screamed, shouted, kicked and spat –all the tricks of a Moscow upbringing employed on this so-called top British agent.
“You have the satellite in range?”
She looked up to see Ouromov standing to her left his high-brimmed cap blocking out a light on the ceiling creating an aura behind his head.
“Da, Comrade General. The codes are ready. We can gain control of Janus within three hours.”
“Good. Trevelyan is showing signs of his…dismay,” Ouromov said haltingly. “We should be careful.”
“We?” she said thickly. “Comrade, I have been kidnapped. I have likely been branded a traitor back in Moscow. If I ever return, I will be imprisoned in the Lubankya…”
“The end is in sight for the Union; your perceived fate might just be that. I can help you, Olegova.”
“Never,” she stood reaching for her coffee mug. “You can go to Hell, Comrade General.”
She was allowed to walk off. There was no escape for her, she did not know her way out of the complex nor indeed exactly where she was anyway. She did know where to get a drink, proceeding up to the second level down a sterile white corridor into a canteen more befitting a bourgeois common room than something in a Soviet installation. The corporal behind the counter made her fresh coffee. She sipped it and made a face. “This still tastes like it’s come from the Volga.”
“Then you should be grateful, a little taste of the Motherland,” the corporal smirked.
She turned leaving the canteen heading down the corridor away from the ops room. She passed a sentry posted to Trevelyan’s quarters and felt their gaze on her. Reaching the end of the corridor Natalya came upon the T-section. Down to the right at the end of that corridor was a cell. She walked up to it peering inside. Somehow she was not surprised to see the inert form of the Britisher who had tried to get information all those moons ago at the archives. He had his face towards her, bruised and bloodied, but was unconscious. She pushed on the cell door but the bars rattled, did not budge.
“Comrade Lieutenant, what are you doing?”
The voice came from one of Ouromov’s guard, a tall yet slightly built man from Siberia who had served under the general since the seventies and the early days of Afghanistan. “I took a wrong turn. What will happen to him?”
“Who knows?” a shrug. “Maybe he will be shot.”
Natalya turned to walk off pausing at the T-juncture to look back. The man named Bond did not stir, as if dead. Squaring her shoulder she walked on.

That was a pleasant surprise after a long Monday at work.

Nice to see things back in motion, Hilly. :)

It's stopstart at the moment. Come Sunday it should come back together. Not long left now.

Excellent news. :D

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

“Zero Minus Two”

Natalya did not need to turn to hear Trevelyan pace the upper level. Her voice was strong as she said: “Two hours to contact.”
“Once we have contact initiate the EMP pulse without fail. Target London, Paris and Berlin specifically.”
“West Berlin?”
“Berlin,” he said firmly. “There will be no doubt as to whom we’re targeting as it is.”
Natalya inputted the data. On the wall board the cities were marked yellow, Janus’ course continued on what had been arranged years ago when the thing had been launched. Off to one side Ouromov watched with some hint of pride to his features. Natalya thought of Bond in his cell and said: “Might I leave? I need the toilet.”
Trevelyan gave her a look, he cut off the general’s protests: “No, no. she is the most important part of our team, General and having her bowels in protest will not do. Go on.”
She left quickly reaching the cell via a quick visit to the toilet. The guard on duty gave her a scowl. “Comrade Lieutenant.”
“I have to give the visitor some water,” she held in her right hand a plastic cup taken from the toilet’s fresh water can.
“Alright, hurry.”
He stepped away after opening the cell to let her in. She turned Bond over with one hand squatting by him. “Comrade, comrade!”
“I…am not your…comrade,” Bond’s voice said heavily. His eyes flicked open, like a wolf’s. He looked over her. “Last drink for the condemned man?”
“A way out. Look, we’re two hours away from wiping out Europe’s banking system. I will try to sabotage Janus but I need your help. We need to destroy the dish. Even if I sabotage the satellite it can be rescued by the dish, there’s manual controls and everything. Do you understand?”
Bond pushed himself up to a sitting position. She helped him, propping him against the wall. “Alright, I get you. But how do you propose getting me out of here?”
“In the tide sometimes lays the answer,” she whispered handing him the water. Then she left. He stared after her as the door clanged shut then looked into the water. At the bottom of the cup was a hairclip. He smiled. “Small mercies and all that.”

**

“Janus is 90 minutes away now,” Natalya reported. “Passing over the Urals.”
“Good. Once you enter the code how long do we have?”
“A few seconds.”
“Doubly good,” Trevelyan smiled at Ouromov standing as they were a few feet away. “You see, your contraption is genius. Soon we will control the reserves for ourselves and dictate terms for the empire as we see fit.”
“You remember your promise?”
“Yes, complete control of Russia…at least her forces,” Trevelyan smirked. “And a dacha full of women no doubt.”
“No,” said Ouromov stiffly.
“Whatever floats your boat.”
As they talked Natalya began to type away at her keyboard. To the observer it was the usual commands and prompts that were needed but she was entering a series of actions that would in a short time prompt Janus to change course completely. Not just the slight orbit that would wipe out the financial reserves and controls of Europe but a complete change.
FINAL COMMAND REQUIRED. ARE YOU SURE? Y/N
She nodded to herself slapping ‘Y’ and then:
TOLSTOY.
The screen rolled up to show: COMMAND ACCEPTED.
She looked left and right but Trevelyan and Ouromov had wandered away. She sat back waiting, her heart skipping wildly.

**

Bond had straightened the hairclip holding it in the palm of his hand. Standing, with every bone in his body crying out, he slid the hairclip silently into the lock of his cell. The guard had his back to Bond arms wrapped around his AK-47. Bond began to jig the lock with careful, very quick and silent actions. He had not done this for years and it showed. Far too reliant on gadgets, he told himself.
The lock popped mutely, the guard began to turn. Bond threw the door out catching the guard in the side and knocking him over. Bond was upon him punching him in the face and taking his AK. As Bond straightened a soldier appeared at the T-junction ahead.
“Vasily!”
He opened fire.

**

“The Janus is changing course,” a technician reported his tone dull and flat. Trevelyan watched the screen. Janus’ projected course was in blue, a flat line through and over Europe past Paris, Berlin and London.
Natalya’s heart was hammering like the treads of a T-34 on the steppes. Come on, come on you bastard satellite.
Janus’ blue dot passed the blue line and kept going.
“It’s orbit is disintegrating,” the technician said.
“What?” Trevelyan raged. He looked over at Natalya and rushed towards her. “What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
At this point the sound of machine gun fire echoed down into the complex’s control room. This was followed by a longer burst. Alarms began to howl. Ouromov looked to Trevelyan wide-eyed. “What is it?”
Trevelyan’s jaw was clenched. “Bond.”
He drew a gun from his tunic, a Colt 45 and pointed it at Natalya. “You change what you did my little girl or I’ll blow your brains halfway across Germany.”
“She knows what to do!” Ouromov shouted coming over. More gunfire upstairs. “You can’t shoot her.”
“Stop Bond from coming in here and do your job!” roared Trevelyan pushing the general with one hand.
Too late, a shadow appeared on the upper level running flat out across it.
Bond.
Trevelyan knocked Natalya to the floor and punched in a command to the console. The screen went black followed by:
COMPUTER LOCKOUT. NO FURTHER COMMANDS REQUIRED.
“Bloody hell!” he took off at a sprint across the floor to a door vanishing through it. On the screen Janus’ orbit continued to decay.
Up above, Bond opened fire.

Intense! Loved picturing this play out in my mind. Awesome job as always, Hilly. 8)

My thanks. It's pacing out now, some of the next chapter is done and it looks to be the penultimate one.

So this one will be a bit shorter than your other stories. I can feel it winding down now.

You might well be right. It's done what it can as it can.

Hilly wrote:

You might well be right. It's done what it can as it can.

Well, I meant winding down as in the climax is clearly imminent. The writing has been top notch all the way. :)

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“Dead Reckoning”

Bond paused behind a pillar wiping his brow. He felt sick, nausea rolled about him like slop on a storm-ridden ship. He checked his magazine and saw he had a few bullets left. Checking his entrance onto the platform he saw the door was still shut. He didn’t know it had locked through Ouromov’s belated delaying action to stop Bond. Bond went to the edge and opened fire on the computers. Several of the PC’s spurted sparks and caught fire through his actions. His gun then rattled empty. Turning left he ran for the stairs running straight into a soldier. Bond slammed the butt of his AK-47 into his face then into the next soldier prompting a comical domino effect all the way down the steps. Bond leapt hitting the last step hard and rolling away. He bit down on his lip trying not to scream. He was in absolute agony. As he staggered up he picked up a fresh AK-47 firing at soldiers coming his way. On the wall screen a message flashed across the map: TEN MINUTES TO SATELLITE DESTRUCTION.
“Nice to know,” he said running across the room firing as he went. He had made sight of Trevelyan running off but where to? Bond stopped by the inert Natalya. He gently slapped her face. She stirred. “Bond…”
“Where’s Trevelyan?”
“Manual control…upper gantry…got to stop him.”
“I’ll do my best,” Bond helped her up. To his surprise Ouromov appeared.
Endgame?
Ouromov had his personal gun out aimed at Bond. “Let her go, Commander.”
“You’re mad, I need to stop Trevelyan.”
“He’s working for a common cause, Bond. If you think I’ll let you stop him.”
“The USSR’s dead General and you with it,” Bond cocked his AK-47 seeing he had half his magazine left. Behind Ouromov more soldiers were arriving. “Embrace the 90s.”
Natalya began to faint again but Bond held her up.
Ouromov looked at Bond then his troops. He lowered his handgun. “Give me the girl. I’ll get her out of here and summon help. Then I’ll set the auto-destruct on this place. You’ll have ten minutes.”
“Long enough,” Bond smiled and left. There was no time or reason to dwell on the volte face that Ouromov had done. No time to dwell on anything.
Just survival.

**

Ouromov need not have worried about summoning help. Once Janus’ orbit had changed an alert had been triggered in the USSR’s People’s Space Command in the outskirts of Moscow. There in a room much more befitting NASA than anything a team of hard-pressed officers and scientists tried to figure the source of the disruption. As they did this all fighter bases near control dishes were put on alert. This included, naturally, the one at Engel-Stadt. Still dealing with the mysterious crash of Otto’s vintage Messerschmitt the fighter squadron here were already tense. When Space Command messaged them saying it was their dish doing the disrupting all hell broke loose. Units hit the streets from the local army battalion, the police were activated and helicopters took to the skies searching.
It didn’t quite occur to the Engel-Stadt teams that the dish was right under their noses.

**

Bond found his way up to a stairwell hearing footsteps up above. Even as he listened the steps echoed into nothingness and what came next was the loudest grinding of machinery he had ever heard. Clapping his hands over his ears Bond drowned out the noise that was the dish rising from the lake. It rose from Engel-Lake like a Norse god, water dripping off its circular shape and innards that glistened in the Alpine sun. Bond could not see of course the startled search teams on the shoreline of the lake as they glimpsed the dish.
“Five minutes until orbit decay,” a computerised voice declared.
Bond took off up the stairs taking them three at a time. When he reached the top he squinted into the bright sunlight. The doorway led onto a gantry that spanned the dish itself. Midway across was a dark figure.
Trevelyan.
Bond raised his AK-47 firing. His bullets clanged off the railings but missed the traitor. The gun clicked empty prompting Bond to throw it over the side. Taking a breath he ran down the gantry his feet thudding heavily, sometimes slipping on the wet surface. As he got halfway across bullets pinged off the surface before him but he kept going. Trevelyan vanished inside a tower that appeared to be the eastern support for the dish.
“Four minutes until orbit decay. Manual controls activated.”
Bond raced through the doorway that Trevelyan had entered straight into a punch from the former 006 that sent Bond reeling back onto the gantry. Trevelyan returned to the computer console typing in commands at a rate of knots. Bond went back in his vision blurring at the edges, his stomach heaving. He punched Alec in the head from behind then flew a kick in at the midriff. Trevelyan staggered swinging around in a turn and fly-kicking Bond. Bond doubled up warding off the furious display of punches that came in. Trevelyan was screaming, yelling at Bond.
Bond punched back, once, twice then a third in the groin that sent Trevelyan into the console. “You can’t win, James! You can’t win!”
Bond advanced on Trevelyan punching him across the face, spraying blood on the floor. “I can give it a damn good try. You betrayed everything you stood for.”
“I stood for something else. Not for the Queen, not for the country. You’re a relic, James. The stone that gathers moss…you’ve lost my old friend.”
Trevelyan’s gun was back in his hand and he fired.
Bond was caught in the shoulder flung back into the wall of the room. He slid down to the floor as Trevelyan returned to his computer machinations. Bond lay there stunned for a moment. Blood spilled between his fingers, he felt woozy as memories began to tumble through his mind. Sepia images…
Trevelyan gasped as Bond got him round the throat with both hands, with a strength neither thought Bond had left. Bond pushed down and down feeling Trevelyan’s neck muscles strain. Just at the moment he thought he had Trevelyan, Bond was knocked back by the traitor. Trevelyan gasped for breath just as a rumble vibrated up from beneath them. The entire dish array trembled then gave a metallic groan. Bond smiled, made much more gruesome by the blood lining his lips.
“Seems Ouromov has blown his fuse, Alec.”
Rage filled Trevelyan’s features as he went to the console. The small computer monitor now read: MANUAL CONTROL DISABLED. SELF DESTRUCT IN EFFECT.
Punching it he then turned to run onto the gantry. Bond went after him ignoring the numbness now on his right shoulder. A helicopter was starting to come over the nearby woodlands towards the stricken dish. Neither man could see the trickle of olive-green uniforms below and out to the west. Flames gushed from the western supports followed by the tilting of the dish in that direction. Trevelyan rolled down the gantry followed by Bond who crashed into the former Double-O with a grunt. Both men stood up almost helping the other. Bond slammed his head into Trevelyan’s followed by a backhanded slap knocking Trevelyan into the railing which rattled with the impact. Bond punched Trevelyan repeatedly in the stomach bringing him to his knees. Through bloodstained lips and bloodshot eyes Trevelyan looked up at Bond.
“I guess this is all for England, James? For flag, queen and country?”
“No, you’ll find I’m doing it for myself,” Bond gripped Trevelyan by the collar and smiled very close to his face. “For sake of mind.”
At that he punched as hard as he could muster into Trevelyan’s smug face. As Bond staggered back, weakened substantially by the effort, Trevelyan hurtled back against the railing which gave way under the force and subsequently went over the side. He fell close to eighty feet onto the dampened yet exposed lake bed that had formed part of the dish’s foundations. If the fall had not killed Alec Trevelyan the collapsing debris of the dish’s western side certainly did.
Bond meanwhile lay on the gantry waiting for the end. The gunshot had taken a lot out of him as had the plane crash before. As he lay there the helicopter that had been coming in, one of the Search And Rescue choppers sent from Engel-Flugplatz, came right in close. The dish was shaking itself apart now as the charges continued to explode in the complex itself. The side of the chopper was open, a burly khaki clad Russian was guiding his pilot in.
“Closer!”
“Any closer and I’ll take the blades off you idiot!”
“CLOSER!”
The chopper, based on the American Sea-King, closed in. The crewman jumped onto the gantry which wobbled for a moment, grabbing Bond under the armpits he was able to haul the British agent onto the helicopter and then waved at his pilot: “Go!”
The pilot needed no urging, the dish was giving way and he hauled up on the stick. As the helicopter pulled clear the dish collapsed on itself effectively filling in the Engel-Lake in a shower of debris and ruin.
The crewman leant close to Bond’s pale face: “Comrade, can you hear me!?”
“Some white rum, if you don’t mind,” Bond rasped before passing out.
The perplexed airman got up going forward to urge a return to Engel-Flugplatz and to have emergency services standing by.

Excellent. Definitely an uglier and more visceral brawl between Bond and Trevelyan than in the finished film.

Very curious to see if my prediction of a SKYFALL-esque ending with an MI6 changing of the guard comes to fruition. I guess we shall see. :D

coco1997 wrote:

Excellent. Definitely an uglier and more visceral brawl between Bond and Trevelyan than in the finished film.

Very curious to see if my prediction of a SKYFALL-esque ending with an MI6 changing of the guard comes to fruition. I guess we shall see. :D

my thanks. Bit of an odd story really. I guess taking on a Brosnan adventure unlike my other stories (chiefly Moore in the shape of TSWLM, MR, OP and VTAK) changed the feel of it. Not long...well, one more to go, the epilogue.

Definitely a different feel. Best way I can sum it up is LTK with TLD-esque settings. Which is fine by me as those are two of my favorite Bond films. :)

coco1997 wrote:

Definitely a different feel. Best way I can sum it up is LTK with TLD-esque settings. Which is fine by me as those are two of my favorite Bond films. :)

Good. They tend to make up two of my top 5. Didn't quite intend on it being so European in setting. I guess that something set at the end of the Cold War needed the German setting rather than shooting out to Cuba.

As for the changing of the guard, such perculations might be for the next one.

Next one? I'm intrigued. :)

coco1997 wrote:

Next one? I'm intrigued. :)

much like the old days of MI6 the mind starts to wander to the next adventure. In this case, Dalton. I don't know yet. We're varying between a TND retread (differences of course, more involving Hong Kong or some note, the Navy etc) or a Skyfall. Dalton could've nailed Skyfall quite well.

And maybe...maybe...Pam.

Very interesting. Going by the first chapter of AWOH, I figured this would play out like Dalton's "Skyfall", but then it headed in a thoroughly "Goldeneye" direction.

I think there's a way to combine the basis premises of both TND and Skyfall into one story. A media baron gets his hands on M's hard drive (or whatever the early '90s equivalent would be) and uses the intel to stage a major terrorist attack somewhere in order to give his media empire broadcasting supremacy...or something like that.

Food for thought Coco. I didn't consider the hard drive (equivalent) thing. I confess to focusing on the sinking of a frigate then realised I've done that in TSWLM (Lazenby), Shatterhand (Neill) and to a point Die Another Day (Neill) when North Korea came south.

Bad ideas it seems on my part.

Why do I not for the life of me remember a DAD rewrite with Neill? Do you have a link somewhere I can check it out?

coco1997 wrote:

Why do I not for the life of me remember a DAD rewrite with Neill? Do you have a link somewhere I can check it out?

Not at present. It died on the old MI6. I have a copy someplace but it's buried someplace.